title: Gavin Williamson

text: In January 2018, it was reported that while managing director of fireplace firm Elgin & Hall in 2004, Williamson had an affair with a married colleague. He discussed the affair in an interview with the "Daily Mail" which he called a "dreadful mistake". "The Sunday Telegraph" reported that Williamson was subsequently the subject of a meeting with managers; he left the firm days later.


title: Gavin Williamson

text: In May 2015, Williamson was sworn of Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council, permitting use of the honorific title "The Right Honourable”. In the 2016 Resignation Honours List of David Cameron, Williamson was put forward for a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) "for political and public service".


title: Gavin Williamson

text: On 3 March 2022, Williamson was gazetted Knight Bachelor as part of the 2022 Special Honours for Political Service. The honour drew disapproval, with Labour's shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson describing Williamson's record as "disgraceful" and the Liberal Democrats calling the knighthood "an insult to every child, parent and teacher who struggled through COVID against the odds". Investiture of his knighthood was delayed pending an inquiry by Sue Gray into alleged COVID-19 lockdown breaches in Downing Street.


title: Billy Bush

text: William Hall Bush (born October 13, 1971) is an American radio and television host. He is a member of the Bush family, a nephew of President George H. W. Bush and cousin of President George W. Bush and Florida governor Jeb Bush.


title: Billy Bush

text: After appearing as a correspondent on "Access Hollywood" from 2001 to 2004, Bush became a primary anchor of the program in 2004. Bush also hosted "The Billy Bush Show", a nationally syndicated talk and music radio show that aired from 2008 to 2014. He departed "Access Hollywood" in 2016 after being named a co-host in the third hour of "Today". Bush's tenure on the Today Show was short-lived, as in October 2016, during the presidential election, he became the subject of controversy when the 2005 "Access Hollywood" recording surfaced of him and presidential candidate Donald Trump having a lewd conversation. Due to this incident, Bush was fired from "Today". Since 2019, Bush has been the host of the syndicated newsmagazine TV show "Extra", a year after the series moved from NBC to Fox.


title: Billy Bush

text: Bush was born in Manhattan, New York, to Josephine Colwell Bush (née Bradley) and Jonathan Bush, a banker. He has one older brother, Jonathan S. Bush. William Bush's uncle (his father's older brother) was George H. W. Bush, the 41st President of the United States. George W. Bush, the 43rd President, and former Florida governor Jeb Bush are William Bush's first cousins.


title: Billy Bush

text: Bush attended middle school at St. Bernard's School in Manhattan and high school at St. George's School in Middletown, Rhode Island. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in international studies and government from Colby College in 1994. He was also a four-year letterman and a two-time co-captain as a junior and senior with the Mules' men's lacrosse team. As of 2017, he is 4th (182), 8th (97), and 4th (85) in career points, goals and assists respectively in program history and was a first-team All-NESCAC in 1994.


title: Billy Bush

text: Bush began his career hosting the afternoon drive show on WLKZ-FM in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, later moving to Washington, D.C., where he hosted the midday show on WARW-FM. In March 1997, Bush joined WWZZ-FM (Z104) in D.C. as host of "Billy Bush and the Bush League Morning Show", which aired until January 2001.


title: Billy Bush

text: In January 2003, Bush hosted a short-lived NBC prime-time version of "Let's Make a Deal". He was also a correspondent for WNBC-TV's "Today in New York" morning show.


title: Billy Bush

text: Bush joined "Access Hollywood", a daily entertainment news magazine, as East Coast correspondent in December 2001. He was promoted to co-anchor in June 2004.


title: Billy Bush

text: While working at "Access Hollywood", he was present at high-profile red carpet events including the Golden Globes, Grammys, and Academy Awards, and hosted ABC's live pre-show for the 2004, 2005 and 2006 Academy Awards and the "2006 Emmy Red Carpet Special".


title: Billy Bush

text: Bush was a reporter for NBC at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, and was the host for "Access Hollywood's" coverage of the 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino as well as the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. In addition, Bush hosted the reality competition "" on NBC in 2007, and stood in for Meredith Vieira for a week of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" shows on April 21–25, 2008. He and Vieira both had credited cameos as hosts of fictional game shows in the 2004 remake of Ira Levin's 1972 satirical thriller "The Stepford Wives".


title: Billy Bush

text: He returned to radio with "The Billy Bush Show", a nightly talk radio and entertainment interview show. It airs from KBIG in Los Angeles and is syndicated by Westwood One. The show is written by Ryan Miller and produced by Corrin Barlow, while Bush and "Access Hollywood" executive producer Rob Silverstein are the show's executive producers. The show, which airs evenings Monday through Friday, focuses on the top entertainment stories and personalities in the news, and features celebrity guests and listener calls.


title: Billy Bush

text: Bush co-hosted the Miss Universe pageant four times: in 2003 and 2004 with Daisy Fuentes; in 2005 with fellow "Access Hollywood" co-anchor Nancy O'Dell; and in 2009 with Claudia Jordan. He has also co-hosted the Miss USA pageant four times, with almost the same partners: in 2003 with Fuentes; 2004 and 2005 with O'Dell; and again in 2009, this time with Nadine Velazquez. After the 65th Annual Golden Globe Awards of 2008 were cancelled as a result of the 2007–08 Writers Guild of America strike, Bush co-hosted the 65th Annual Golden Globe Awards Announcement press conference with O'Dell on January 13, 2008.


title: Billy Bush

text: Bush was named one of "Esquire" magazine's "10 Men" in July 2005. "He's a furious, inventive interviewer, unafraid of playing the fool in exchange for a true reaction", opined the writer of the accompanying magazine profile.


title: Billy Bush

text: From September 13, 2010, to October 2016, Bush co-hosted the syndicated national daily entertainment talk show "Access Hollywood Live", along with co-host Kit Hoover. This show is a sister show of "Access Hollywood", with host chat of popular topics and celebrity live interviews. Bush and Hoover traveled together to the UK to cover Prince William's wedding to Catherine Middleton, as part of the NBC team coverage.


title: Billy Bush

text: Bush played the drill sergeant in the 2010 film "Furry Vengeance" and had a small role as the voice of a newscaster in the 2014 Disney animated film "Big Hero 6". He has also had several appearances on television shows including "30 Rock" and "Donny!".


title: Billy Bush

text: In May 2016, Bush was selected to be the co-host of the third hour of NBC's "Today". He served as a replacement for Willie Geist.


title: Billy Bush

text: Bush was the first reporter to interview American Olympic swimmer Ryan Lochte after the athlete claimed he was robbed at gunpoint in Rio de Janeiro during the 2016 Summer Olympics. Bush's due diligence as an interviewer was scrutinized after critics claimed Bush did not ask questions that would have shown Lochte's story was fabricated. When details of Lochte's story began to fall apart, Matt Lauer re-interviewed the swimmer in a move that was seen as a snub to Bush. Bush garnered attention once again after he and Al Roker got into an argument during Olympic coverage on "Today" after Lochte was exposed. Bush defended Lochte, saying he lied about "some" details whereas Roker characterized Lochte's statement as a lie.


title: Billy Bush

text: On October 7, 2016, "The Washington Post" reported that video footage was released of Donald Trump having a lewd conversation with Bush, with Trump either unaware or unconcerned that his microphone was active. Bush is heard laughing about Trump's failed effort to seduce a married woman, and joining in by commenting on actress Arianne Zucker's appearance, calling her "hot as shit." The video was made on the NBC Studios lot in the course of videotaping an "Access Hollywood" episode in mid-September 2005, promoting Trump's cameo appearance in an episode of daytime soap opera "Days of Our Lives" to promote "The Apprentice".


title: Billy Bush

text: In the video, Trump discussed a failed attempt to seduce Bush's then-co-host Nancy O'Dell: "I moved on her, and I failed. I’ll admit it. I did try and fuck her. She was married." He also talked about stars groping women: "...you just kiss...when you're a star they let you do it. You can do anything [Bush: Anything you want]...grab them by the pussy..."


title: Billy Bush

text: When the news of the footage first broke, Bush was at New York's JFK International Airport waiting to take off for Los Angeles. He spent the six-hour flight reading news reports on the unfolding controversy. By the time he arrived in Los Angeles, a horde of paparazzi had materialized at Los Angeles International Airport and at his home in Los Angeles, where they remained for more than a week. Bush spent the remainder of that weekend trying to save his job at "Today", which had already garnered controversy, first over Bush's lack of hard-news experience and the rude tone he exhibited during red carpet events and then over the Ryan Lochte matter. Initially, NBC News signaled Bush would return that Monday to apologize on-air. Bush later stated, "I would have welcomed addressing the audience."


title: Billy Bush

text: However, Bush received criticism online and calls for his resignation from the show, with "The Washington Post" stating, "Bush's public image was damaged—perhaps beyond repair." He issued an apology, stating: "Obviously I'm embarrassed and ashamed. It's no excuse, but this happened eleven years ago. I was younger, less mature, and acted foolishly in playing along. I'm very sorry." Bush was 33 years old at the time the video was made. On October 9, 2016, NBC announced that Bush was suspended from "Today" for his role in the 2005 video. He was suspended pending an internal review. By October 17, Bush had been fired.


title: Billy Bush

text: After "The New York Times" reported in late November 2017 that Trump had privately told people, including a sitting senator, that the voice on the tape was not his, Bush published an op-ed in the paper on December 3, reaffirming that the voice in the tape was the president's and accusing him of engaging in revisionist history.


title: Billy Bush

text: On May 8, 2019, Telepictures announced they would hire Bush to be the host of "Extra". Bush replaced Mario Lopez at the start of the 26th season on September 9, 2019, in a revamp of the show, which was originally to be renamed "ExtraExtra". This came after Lopez departed Extra to host Access Hollywood, a show Bush previously hosted from 2001-2016.


title: Billy Bush

text: He married Sydney Davis in April 1998 and the couple have three daughters. On September 19, 2017, the couple announced they were separating. On July 15, 2018, Bush and his wife announced their divorce due to irreconcilable differences.


title: Billy Bush

text: Through his mother, Bush is a descendant of Louis DuBois, who fled religious persecution in France and settled in what was then the Dutch Colony of New Amsterdam; he helped found the town of New Paltz, New York. He is also a descendant of the Hasbrouck family and the Van Vleck family, making him a second cousin, three times removed of Nobel Physics Prize recipient John Hasbrouck Van Vleck.


title: Chelation therapy

text: Chelation therapy is a medical procedure that involves the administration of chelating agents to remove heavy metals from the body. Chelation therapy has a long history of use in clinical toxicology and remains in use for some very specific medical treatments, although it is administered under very careful medical supervision due to various inherent risks, including the mobilization of mercury and other metals through the brain and other parts of the body by the use of weak chelating agents that unbind with metals before elimination, exacerbating existing damage. To avoid mobilization, some practitioners of chelation use strong chelators, such as selenium, taken at low doses over a long period of time.


title: Chelation therapy

text: Chelation therapy must be administered with care as it has a number of possible side effects, including death. In response to increasing use of chelation therapy as alternative medicine and in circumstances in which the therapy should not be used in conventional medicine, various health organizations have confirmed that medical evidence does not support the effectiveness of chelation therapy for any purpose other than the treatment of heavy metal poisoning. Over-the-counter chelation products are not approved for sale in the United States.


title: Chelation therapy

text: Chelation therapy is the preferred medical treatment for metal poisoning, including acute mercury, iron (including in cases of sickle-cell disease and thalassemia), arsenic, lead, uranium, plutonium and other forms of toxic metal poisoning. The chelating agent may be administered intravenously, intramuscularly, or orally, depending on the agent and the type of poisoning.


title: Chelation therapy

text: There are a variety of common chelating agents with differing affinities for different metals, physical characteristics, and biological mechanism of action. For the most common forms of heavy metal intoxication – lead, arsenic, or mercury – a number of chelating agents are available. Dimercaptosuccinic acid (DMSA) has been recommended for the treatment of lead poisoning in children by poison control centers around the world. Other chelating agents, such as 2,3-dimercaptopropanesulfonic acid (DMPS) and alpha lipoic acid (ALA), are used in conventional and alternative medicine. Some common chelating agents are ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA), 2,3-dimercaptopropanesulfonic acid (DMPS), and thiamine tetrahydrofurfuryl disulfide (TTFD). Calcium-disodium EDTA and DMSA are only approved for the removal of lead by the Food and Drug Administration while DMPS and TTFD are not approved by the FDA. These drugs bind to heavy metals in the body and prevent them from binding to other agents. They are then excreted from the body. The chelating process also removes vital nutrients such as vitamins C and E, therefore these must be supplemented.


title: Chelation therapy

text: The German Environmental Agency (Umweltbundesamt) listed DMSA and DMPS as the two most useful and safe chelating agents available.


title: Chelation therapy

text: When used properly in response to a diagnosis of harm from metal toxicity, side effects of chelation therapy include dehydration, low blood calcium, harm to kidneys, increased enzymes as would be detected in liver function tests, allergic reactions, and lowered levels of dietary elements. When administered inappropriately, there are the additional risks of hypocalcaemia (low calcium levels), neurodevelopmental disorders, and death.


title: Chelation therapy

text: Chelation therapy can be traced back to the early 1930s, when Ferdinand Münz, a German chemist working for I.G. Farben, first synthesized ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA). Munz was looking for a replacement for citric acid as a water softener. Chelation therapy itself began during World War II when chemists at the University of Oxford searched for an antidote for lewisite, an arsenic-based chemical weapon. The chemists learned that EDTA was particularly effective in treating lead poisoning.


title: Chelation therapy

text: Following World War II, chelation therapy was used to treat workers who had painted United States naval vessels with lead-based paints. In the 1950s, Norman Clarke, Sr. was treating workers at a battery factory for lead poisoning when he noticed that some of his patients had improved angina pectoris following chelation therapy. Clarke subsequently administered chelation therapy to patients with angina pectoris and other occlusive vascular disease and published his findings in "The American Journal of the Medical Sciences" in December 1956. He hypothesized that "EDTA could dissolve disease-causing plaques in the coronary systems of human beings." In a series of 283 patients treated by Clarke et al. From 1956 to 1960, 87% showed improvement in their symptomatology. Other early medical investigators made similar observations of EDTA's role in the treatment of cardiovascular disease (Bechtel, 1956; Bessman, 1957; Perry, 1961; Szekely, 1963; Wenig, 1958: and Wilder, 1962).


title: Chelation therapy

text: In 1973, a group of practicing physicians created the Academy of Medical Preventics (now the American College for Advancement in Medicine). The academy trains and certifies physicians in the safe administration of chelation therapy. Members of the academy continued to use EDTA therapy for the treatment of vascular disease and developed safer administration protocols.


title: Chelation therapy

text: In the 1960s, BAL was modified into DMSA, a related dithiol with far fewer side effects. DMSA quickly replaced both BAL and EDTA as the primary treatment for lead, arsenic and mercury poisoning in the United States. Esters of DMSA have been developed which are reportedly more effective; for example, the monoisoamyl ester (MiADMSA) is reportedly more effective than DMSA at clearing mercury and cadmium. Research in the former Soviet Union led to the introduction of DMPS, another dithiol, as a mercury-chelating agent. The Soviets also introduced ALA, which is transformed by the body into the dithiol dihydrolipoic acid, a mercury- and arsenic-chelating agent. DMPS has experimental status in the United States, while ALA is a common nutritional supplement.


title: Chelation therapy

text: Since the 1970s, iron chelation therapy has been used as an alternative to regular phlebotomy to treat excess iron stores in people with haemochromatosis. Other chelating agents have been discovered. They all function by making several chemical bonds with metal ions, thus rendering them much less chemically reactive. The resulting complex is water-soluble, allowing it to enter the bloodstream and be excreted harmlessly.


title: Chelation therapy

text: Calcium-disodium EDTA chelation has been studied by the U.S. National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine for treating coronary disease. In 1998, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) pursued the American College for Advancement in Medicine (ACAM), an organization that promotes "complementary, alternative and integrative medicine" over the claims made regarding the treatment of atherosclerosis in advertisements for EDTA chelation therapy. The FTC concluded that there was a lack of scientific studies to support these claims and that the statements by the ACAM were false. In 1999, the ACAM agreed to stop presenting chelation therapy as effective in treating heart disease, avoiding legal proceedings. In 2010 the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) warned companies who sold over-the-counter (OTC) chelation products and stated that such "products are unapproved drugs and devices and that it is a violation of federal law to make unproven claims about these products. There are no FDA-approved OTC chelation products."


title: Chelation therapy

text: In 1998, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) charged that the web site of the American College for Advancement in Medicine (ACAM) and a brochure they published had made false or unsubstantiated claims. In December 1998, the FTC announced that it had secured a consent agreement barring ACAM from making unsubstantiated advertising claims that chelation therapy is effective against atherosclerosis or any other disease of the circulatory system.


title: Chelation therapy

text: In August 2005, doctor error led to the death of a five-year-old boy with autism who was undergoing chelation therapy. Others, including a three-year-old nonautistic girl and a nonautistic adult, have died while undergoing chelation therapy. These deaths were due to cardiac arrest caused by hypocalcemia during chelation therapy. In two of the cases hypocalcemia appears to have been caused by the administration of Na2EDTA (disodium EDTA) and in the third case the type of EDTA was unknown. Only the 3-year-old girl had found to have an elevated blood lead level and resulting low iron levels and anemia, which is the conventional medical cause for administration of chelation therapy. According to protocol, EDTA should not be used in the treatment of children. More than 30 deaths have been recorded in association with IV-administered disodium EDTA since the 1970s.


title: Chelation therapy

text: In alternative medicine, some practitioners claim chelation therapy can treat a variety of ailments, including heart disease and autism. The use of chelation therapy by alternative medicine practitioners for behavioral and other disorders is considered pseudoscientific; there is no proof that it is effective. Chelation therapy prior to heavy metal testing can artificially raise urinary heavy metal concentrations ("provoked" urine testing) and lead to inappropriate and unnecessary treatment. The American College of Medical Toxicology and the American Academy of Clinical Toxicology warn the public that chelating drugs used in chelation therapy may have serious side effects, including liver and kidney damage, blood pressure changes, allergies and in some cases even death of the patient.


title: Chelation therapy

text: The American Cancer Society says of chelation therapy: "Available scientific evidence does not support claims that it is effective for treating other conditions such as cancer. Chelation therapy can be toxic and has the potential to cause kidney damage, irregular heartbeat, and even death."


title: Chelation therapy

text: According to the findings of a 1997 systematic review, EDTA chelation therapy is not effective as a treatment for coronary artery disease and this use is not approved in the United States by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).


title: Chelation therapy

text: The American Heart Association stated in 1997 that there is "no scientific evidence to demonstrate any benefit from this form of therapy." The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the American College of Cardiology "all agree with the American Heart Association" that "there have been no adequate, controlled, published scientific studies using currently approved scientific methodology to support this therapy for cardiovascular disease." They speculate that any improvement among heart patients undergoing chelation therapy can be attributed to the placebo effect and generally recommended lifestyle changes such as "quitting smoking, losing weight, eating more fruits and vegetables, avoiding foods high in saturated fats and exercising regularly." They also are concerned that patients could put off proven treatments for heart disease like drugs or surgery.


title: Chelation therapy

text: A systematic review published in 2005 found that controlled scientific studies did not support chelation therapy for heart disease. It found that very small trials and uncontrolled descriptive studies have reported benefits while larger controlled studies have found results no better than placebo.


title: Chelation therapy

text: In 2009, the Montana Board of Medical Examiners issued a position paper concluding that "chelation therapy has no proven efficacy in the treatment of cardiovascular disease, and in some patients could be injurious."


title: Chelation therapy

text: The U.S. National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) conducted a trial on the chelation therapy's safety and efficacy for patients with coronary artery disease. NCCAM Director Stephen E. Straus cited the "widespread use of chelation therapy in lieu of established therapies, the lack of adequate prior research to verify its safety and effectiveness, and the overall impact of coronary artery disease" as factors motivating the trial. The study has been criticized by some who said it was unethical, unnecessary and dangerous, and that multiple studies conducted prior to it demonstrated that the treatment provides no benefit.


title: Chelation therapy

text: The US National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine began the Trial to Assess Chelation Therapy (TACT) in 2003. Patient enrollment was to be completed around July 2009 with final completion around July 2010, but enrollment in the trial was voluntarily suspended by organizers in September 2008 after the Office for Human Research Protections began investigating complaints such as inadequate informed consent. Additionally, the trial was criticized for lacking prior Phase I and II studies, and critics summarized previous controlled trials as having "found no evidence that chelation is superior to placebo for treatment of CAD or PVD." The same critics argued that methodological flaws and lack of prior probability made the trial "unethical, dangerous, pointless, and wasteful." The American College of Cardiology supported the trial and research to explore whether chelation therapy was effective in treating heart disease. Evidence of insurance fraud and other felony convictions among (chelation proponent) investigators further undermined the credibility of the trial.


title: Chelation therapy

text: The final results of TACT were published in November 2012. The authors concluded that disodium EDTA chelation "modestly" reduced the risk of adverse cardiovascular outcomes among stable patients with a history of myocardial infarction. The study also showed a "marked" reduction in cardiovascular events in diabetic patients treated with EDTA chelation. An editorial published in the "Journal of the American Medical Association" said that "the study findings may provide novel hypotheses that merit further evaluation to help understand the pathophysiology of secondary prevention of vascular disease." Critics of the study characterized the study as showing no support for the use of chelation therapy in coronary heart disease, particularly the claims to reduce the need for coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG, pronounced "cabbage").


title: Chelation therapy

text: Quackwatch says that autism is one of the conditions for which chelation therapy has been falsely promoted as effective, and practitioners falsify diagnoses of metal poisoning to trick parents into having their children undergo the risky process. , up to 7% of children with autism worldwide had been subjected to chelation therapy. The death of two children in 2005 was caused by the administration of chelation treatments, according to the American Center for Disease Control. One of them had autism. Parents either have a doctor use a treatment for lead poisoning, or buy unregulated supplements, in particular DMSA and lipoic acid. Aspies For Freedom, an autism rights organization, considers this use of chelation therapy unethical and potentially dangerous. There is little to no credible scientific research that supports the use of chelation therapy for the effective treatment of autism.


title: Nicktoons

text: Nicktoons is a collective name used by Nickelodeon for their original animated series. All Nicktoons are produced partly at the Nickelodeon Animation Studio and list Nickelodeon's parent company (Viacom, now known as Paramount Global) in their copyright bylines.


title: Nicktoons

text: Since its launch in the late 1970s, Nickelodeon's schedule incorporated animation produced by other companies. The channel did not invest into its own original cartoon series until 1989, when producer Vanessa Coffey visited Los Angeles to accept pitches from local animators. Geraldine Laybourne, the channel's then-president, greenlit three pitches for full series: "Doug", "The Ren & Stimpy Show", and "Rugrats". On August 11, 1991, the three cartoons premiered as part of a 90-minute block, becoming the first branded Nicktoons. In contrast to the merchandise-based cartoons that dominated the 1980s animation industry, Vanessa Coffey and Geraldine Laybourne agreed that the Nicktoons should be creator-driven: based on original characters designed by animators.


title: Nicktoons

text: The first Nicktoons debuted to financial success, convincing Viacom to invest in original animated shows for its other network MTV. Until 1998, Nickelodeon's animation division operated out of a rented office complex in Studio City, California. Production moved to an individual building in nearby Burbank on March 4, 1998. Among the first shows produced at this new facility was "SpongeBob SquarePants", which by 2004 had become the most profitable program in Nickelodeon history. In 2002, a cable channel also called Nicktoons was launched, followed by multiple international versions. Several original shows have premiered new episodes on the Nicktoons network.


title: Nicktoons

text: In the early 2010s, Nickelodeon debuted the first two Nicktoons based on preexisting TV franchises, as opposed to new characters: "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" and "Winx Club". These two revamped shows were developed at Nickelodeon Animation Studio following Viacom's purchases of both properties. In 2019, Nick Animation debuted its first streaming-exclusive Nicktoon, "Pinky Malinky", which was released on Netflix rather than television. Several months later, the studio announced a multi-year deal to produce animated content for Netflix, including new properties and spin-offs of previous Nicktoons.


title: Nicktoons

text: Nickelodeon's first original animated program, "Video Dream Theatre", was left unaired. It was produced over a half-year period in 1979, when the network hired its future president Geraldine Laybourne to make two pilots for the show. "Video Dream Theatre" used animation to visualize children's dreams in different styles, such as color Xerox. According to an interview with Laybourne herself, Nickelodeon did not broadcast the show because it was deemed too frightening; she commented, "the trouble with kids' dreams is they're really scary. It's a lot about abandonment, it's a lot about suffocation. They don't make very good stories."


title: Nicktoons

text: The network continued to only broadcast externally-produced animation until almost a decade later, when animator Ralph Bakshi pitched an original animated series called "Tattertown". In 1988, a half-hour pilot episode was produced, overseen by Debby Beece (Nickelodeon's senior vice president of programming). Nickelodeon declined to pick up a full series, and the pilot "Christmas in Tattertown" premiered on December 21, 1988, as a standalone Christmas special. The network's next attempt at an original animation was "Nick's Thanksgiving Fest", which was composed of two shorts. According to Linda Simensky, the Thanksgiving shorts "gave Nickelodeon executives the confidence they needed to get the animation department started."


title: Nicktoons

text: During the production of "Nick's Thanksgiving Fest" in 1989, Geraldine Laybourne held a meeting at her house to develop a philosophy for the channel's original cartoons. She played tapes of current animated shows, which her colleagues viewed as merchandise-driven and overly commercial. The group decided that Nickelodeon should aim for the opposite of their contemporaries, producing cartoons that would keep their creators in a key creative role rather than prioritizing an efficient "assembly line" process.


title: Nicktoons

text: Geraldine Laybourne laid out a set of rules for the network's cartoons, most importantly wanting to "put the creator back, front and center." She approached her fellow executive Vanessa Coffey to find artists in Los Angeles interested in pitching original cartoons. Coffey had experience working in animation and was the producer for "Nick's Thanksgiving Fest" in 1988. Laybourne gave Coffey "pretty much free rein to look for properties."


title: Nicktoons

text: Vanessa Coffey rented an apartment in Los Angeles for two weeks and accepted hourly pitches. She mailed animators a call for submissions, which she summarized as "I'm looking for ideas, I'm looking for concepts. The less developed, the better. I want drawings, not a big pitch." As Coffey accepted pitches, she decided that she did not want a "consistent look like Disney," specifically searching for projects that had completely different styles from each other.


title: Nicktoons

text: Of the pitches she accepted, Coffey decided to approve eight six-minute pilots at a cost of $100,000 each. Laybourne would eventually select three pilots to expand into full series, meant to fill a programming block of an hour and a half. The first Nicktoon that Coffey approved was Jim Jinkins' "Doug", followed by Arlene Klasky and Gabor Csupo's "Rugrats". The final pitch that went to series came from John Kricfalusi, who presented a variety show titled "Your Gang" with a live-action host presenting different cartoons, each cartoon parodying a different genre. Ren and Stimpy were pets of one of the children in "Your Gang". Coffey was dissatisfied with most of the pitch but did like Ren and Stimpy, singling them out for their own series. Both Coffey and Laybourne allowed the three shows to enter development. Between the pilots and series' production, Vanessa Coffey was named Nickelodeon's Vice President of Animation.


title: Nicktoons

text: In fall 1992, Nickelodeon fired John Kricfalusi. Coffey and Laybourne asserted that Kricfalusi was in breach of contract for not delivering on time, creating inappropriate content, and going over budget. Kricfalusi suspected the real reason was that the network was uncomfortable with more crude humor. After Kricfalusi and Nickelodeon missed several promised new-episode delivery and air dates, the network—which had purchased the rights to the "Ren & Stimpy" characters from Kricfalusi—negotiated a settlement with him. Production on "Ren & Stimpy" moved to Nickelodeon's animation department, Games Animation, and the show was put under the creative supervision of Bob Camp. Coffey soon stepped down as animation vice president for Nickelodeon to pursue her own projects. She was replaced by Mary Harrington, a Nickelodeon producer who moved out from New York to help run the Nicktoons division after Kricfalusi was fired.


title: Nicktoons

text: At the time, the Nicktoons were produced primarily out-of-house at Jumbo Pictures ("Doug") and Klasky-Csupo ("Rugrats"), with Nickelodeon's executives overseeing development. Hoping to concentrate production under one roof, Nickelodeon greenlit its first fully-in-house series, "Rocko's Modern Life", in 1992. A budget freeze in 1995 at Viacom (parent company of Nickelodeon) resulted in "Ren & Stimpy" being cancelled that same year and the network passing on the final 13 episodes of their option for "Doug". Jinkins sold Jumbo Pictures to Disney in 1996, moving "Doug" over to ABC and Disney Channel as a result. Nickelodeon retained the rights to the 52 episodes produced between 1991 and 1994 as a part of the agreement.


title: Nicktoons

text: In 1996, Albie Hecht, then-president of Film and TV Entertainment for Nickelodeon, met with Nickelodeon artists to brainstorm an idea for a new Nicktoons studio. Nickelodeon's new facility, named Nickelodeon Animation Studio, would eventually open on March 4, 1998; Hecht said, "For me, this building is the physical manifestation of a personal dream, which is that when people think of cartoons, they'll say Nicktoons."


title: Nicktoons

text: In June 1997, Nickelodeon began a five-year, $350 million investment into original animation. As part of this effort, the company doubled its animation staff and produced many new pilots, including one for "SpongeBob SquarePants". Before commissioning "SpongeBob SquarePants" as a full series, Nickelodeon executives insisted that it would not be popular unless the main character was a child who went to school, with his teacher as a main character. The show's creator, Stephen Hillenburg, recalled in 2012 that Nickelodeon told him, "Our winning formula is animation about kids in school... We want you to put SpongeBob in school." Hillenburg was ready to "walk out" on Nickelodeon and abandon the series, since he wanted SpongeBob to be an adult character. He eventually compromised by adding a new character to the main cast, Mrs. Puff, who is a boat-driving teacher. Hillenburg was happy with the compromise and said, "A positive thing for me that came out of it was [how it brought] in a new character, Mrs. Puff, who I love."


title: Nicktoons

text: According to Nickelodeon writer Micah Wright, the series pickups for both "SpongeBob" and "CatDog" were announced on the same day in 1997. Nickelodeon's senior vice president, Kevin Kay, confirmed to the animation studio's creative team that it had greenlit 100 episodes (200 individual segments) of "CatDog" and six episodes (twelve segments) of "SpongeBob". Nickelodeon believed "CatDog" had the potential to be its next breakout hit, and their order represented an investment of $50 million into the series alone. Stephen Hillenburg was doubtful that his show would last, and he stated in 2009: "I was thinking if we could make a pilot, then we'd have one episode and have accomplished that. Then I thought if it did go to a full season that we'd get twelve chances to write stories and that might be it... that we'd make twelve shows and get cancelled."


title: Nicktoons

text: In 1998, Nickelodeon premiered "Oh Yeah! Cartoons", which was intended as a "character laboratory" to test out cartoon characters. Creator Fred Seibert described the show as an experiment into a seven-minute format that Nickelodeon generally avoided; he said, "they were very willing to try an experiment to see how it would work." The series eventually yielded three half-hour spin-offs based on segments from the show: "The Fairly OddParents", "ChalkZone", and "My Life as a Teenage Robot". 1998 also marked the release of the first feature film based on a Nicktoon: "The Rugrats Movie", which became the first non-Disney animated film to gross over $100 million at the North American box office. On December 8, Nickelodeon's movie division greenlit theatrical adaptations of "Hey Arnold!" and "The Wild Thornberrys", less than a month after "Rugrats" opened in theaters.


title: Nicktoons

text: At the turn of the millennium, Nickelodeon noticed that a new competitor, Cartoon Network, was attracting some of its 11–15 year old demographic. Desiring a cartoon suited for older viewers, Nickelodeon producer Mary Harrington contacted Jhonen Vasquez for a series pitch after reading his "Squee!" comic books. Vasquez pitched "Invader Zim", which satisfied Nickelodeon's requests for "something 'edgy'."


title: Nicktoons

text: Nickelodeon also sought out a new action-adventure cartoon after commissioning several anime-inspired pilots that "didn't go anywhere," according to a "New York Times" article. By 2002, Nickelodeon had rejected multiple Japanese series, considering them derivative or too mature for the channel's target audience. In response, Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino pitched "", and Nickelodeon ordered six episodes of the show. "Avatar" premiered in February 2005 to high ratings, after which Nickelodeon increased its order to 13 episodes and again to 20.


title: Nicktoons

text: In the early 2000s, Nickelodeon briefly continued its strategy of adapting Nicktoon franchises into theatrical features. Executives at the company's movie division decided to reconsider this approach after several films ("" and "Rugrats Go Wild") were met with poor financial and critical reception. According to the "Chicago Tribune", Nickelodeon believed the "Hey Arnold!" movie "didn't just fail but actually tarnished one of the company's best selling points: its trustworthy brand name." Aside from "SpongeBob SquarePants" films, Nickelodeon Movies stopped producing animated theatrical features based on their shows.


title: Nicktoons

text: In February 2005, high ratings from Butch Hartman's two Nicktoons ("The Fairly OddParents" and "Danny Phantom") convinced the network to sign a multi-year deal with Hartman. As part of the agreement, Hartman developed original animated and live-action concepts for Nickelodeon and its sister channel, Noggin. In a statement, Hartman said, "Working with everyone at Nickelodeon over the past several years has been hugely satisfying and I look forward to forging the same kind of terrific creative alliances with the folks at Noggin."


title: Nicktoons

text: In October 2006, DreamWorks Animation (who was then in a distribution deal with Nickelodeon's corporate sister Paramount Pictures) announced that it would partner to co-produce animated shows with the channel. The partnership resulted in three CGI-animated shows based on DreamWorks' character library: "The Penguins of Madagascar", "", and "Monsters vs. Aliens".


title: Nicktoons

text: In October 2009 and September 2010, respectively, Viacom brought "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" and "Winx Club" into the Nickelodeon family by purchasing both franchises. Nickelodeon Animation Studio produced a new CGI-animated "Turtles" series and new seasons of "Winx Club" with CGI sequences. "TMNT" and "Winx" were both inducted into the Nicktoons franchise after Nickelodeon launched them. The two productions comprised Nickelodeon's strategy to reboot two established brands for new viewers: "TMNT" was intended to reach an audience of boys aged 6 to 11, and "Winx" was aimed at the same age group of girls. In February 2011, Viacom bought out a third of Rainbow SpA, the Italian animation studio that introduced "Winx Club". The purchase was valued at 62 million euros (US$83 million) and led to new shows being co-developed by Rainbow and Nickelodeon, including "Club 57" and a pilot for the Nickelodeon Animated Shorts Program called "Crazy Block".


title: Nicktoons

text: In the early 2010s, Nickelodeon executives searched for independent animations on the Internet, looking for original ideas. Chris Viscardi, who would later become Nickelodeon Animation's senior vice president, stated that the studio desired to "[get] back to more creator-driven things." Nickelodeon eventually came across two animations they enjoyed: "The Forest City Rockers" (a short series by Jay Howell and Jim Dirschberger) and "Breadwinners" (a stand-alone short by Gary DiRaffaele and Steve Borst). Howell and Dirschberger were recruited to develop "Sanjay and Craig" while DiRaffaele and Borst were asked to expand their "Breadwinners" short into a full series. "Sanjay and Craig" premiered first, on May 25, 2013. After its debut, "Los Angeles Times" critic Robert Lloyd optimistically compared the show to the Nicktoons of the 1990s, writing that "the goofy and delightful series ... represents a positive step back for the network to where it once belonged."


title: Nicktoons

text: In the late 2010s, Nickelodeon revived three existing Nicktoons IP as one-off movies, including "", "", and "". The first aired on the Nickelodeon channel in November 2017, while the latter two premiered in August 2019 on Netflix. Jhonen Vasquez, the creator of "Invader Zim", stated in 2019 that the studio's support for the revival films waned due to a shift in management: "We had an immense amount of support throughout most of the production. Things just turn on a dime, people get axed, new people come in."


title: Nicktoons

text: In 2018, Nickelodeon began to shift from focusing only on cable broadcasting to what it describes as a "studio model" that provides content for third party companies. The decision was made based on the sharp decline of cable viewership due to the rise of streaming services. As part of this strategy, Nickelodeon announced that the series "Pinky Malinky" would release on Netflix as "the first straight-to-Netflix Nicktoon." The series premiered on the platform on January 1, 2019. On November 13, 2019, Nickelodeon expanded their relationship with Netflix with the announcement of a multi-year output deal, under which Nickelodeon Animation Studio will produce "original animated feature films and TV series based on both new and existing IP." On February 21, 2020, Nickelodeon's "Glitch Techs" premiered on Netflix, becoming the second Nicktoon to receive a digital only release.


title: Caché (film)

text: Caché (), also known as Hidden (United Kingdom), is a 2005 psychological thriller film written and directed by Michael Haneke and starring Daniel Auteuil and Juliette Binoche. The plot follows an upper-middle-class French couple, Georges (Auteuil) and Anne (Binoche), who are terrorised by anonymous tapes that appear on their front porch and seem to show the family is under surveillance. Clues in the videos point to Georges's childhood memories, and his resistance to his parents' adopting an Algerian orphan named Majid, who was sent away. The tapes lead him to the now-grown Majid (Maurice Bénichou).


title: Caché (film)

text: Shot in Paris and Vienna in 2004, the film is an international co-production of France, Austria, Germany and Italy. Haneke wrote the screenplay with Auteuil and Binoche in mind, and with a concept of exploring guilt and childhood. When he learned of the French government's decades-long denial of the 1961 Seine River massacre, he incorporated memories of the event into his story.


title: Caché (film)

text: "Caché" opened at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival to critical acclaim for the performances and Haneke's direction. Its plot ambiguities raised considerable discussion. The film has been interpreted as an allegory about collective guilt and collective memory, and as a statement on France's Algerian War and colonialism in general. While presented as a mystery, the film does not explicitly reveal which character sends the tapes. Haneke regarded that as of secondary importance to the exploration of guilt and left the question up to viewer interpretation.


title: Caché (film)

text: The film won three awards at Cannes, including Best Director; five European Film Awards, including Best Film; and other honours. It was controversially disqualified for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. "Caché" has been regarded in the years since its release as one of the greatest films of the 2000s, included in BBC's 100 Greatest Films of the 21st Century.


title: Caché (film)

text: An affluent Parisian couple, Anne and Georges Laurent, discover a videotape left on their property without explanation that shows hours of footage of their residence, implying they are under surveillance. Puzzled about its origin, they debate its purpose, considering whether it might be a practical joke played by friends of their 12-year-old son, Pierrot, or the work of fans of Georges, who hosts a literary television show. A second tape arrives, accompanied by a childlike drawing of a person with blood streaming out of his mouth. Similar drawings are mailed to Georges's workplace and Pierrot's school. Disturbed, the Laurents turn to the French police, who determine the tapes are too harmless to be considered criminal activity. The Laurents host a dinner party that is interrupted by the delivery of another videotape, with a crude drawing of a chicken bleeding at its neck. When Anne discloses the stalking to their friends, Georges puts the tape in the VCR, and finds it shows the estate where he grew up.


title: Caché (film)

text: Georges begins to have vivid dreams about Majid, a boy he knew in childhood. Majid's Algerian parents worked as farmhands on Georges's family estate but disappeared in the Paris massacre of 1961. Feeling responsible for Majid, Georges's parents intended to adopt him, but the process was never finalised. Suspecting Majid might be responsible for the tapes, Georges visits his ailing mother, who surprisingly professes not to remember Majid well. When the Laurents receive another tape, revealing a low-income housing (HLM) apartment, Georges tells Anne he has a suspect in mind, but will not say who until he can confirm his suspicion. Anne responds with shock at what she sees as his lack of trust.


title: Caché (film)

text: Following the last tape's clues, Georges locates the apartment off Avenue Lénine in Romainville and finds Majid there. Majid denies knowledge of the tapes or drawing, but Georges does not believe him and threatens him. A hidden camera recorded the conversation with Majid, who breaks down crying after Georges leaves, and tapes of the encounter are sent to Anne and Georges's employer. Georges explains to Anne that he was six when his parents were planning to adopt Majid and that he did not want it to happen; he told lies about Majid, who was sent away. When Pierrot disappears, the Laurents frantically contact the police, who check Majid's apartment and arrest Majid and Majid's son, though they deny involvement in kidnapping. Pierrot returns to his family, having spent time with friends, and hints to Anne that he thinks she is too close to Pierre, a family friend.


title: Caché (film)

text: Majid calls Georges and asks him to come back to the apartment. When Georges arrives, Majid denies having sent the tapes, says he wanted Georges present, and kills himself by slashing his throat. Georges confesses to Anne that as a boy, he had claimed Majid was coughing up blood and convinced Majid to kill the family's rooster, falsely claiming his father wanted him to. The police confirm the cause of death as suicide, but Majid's son appears at Georges's workplace to confront him. Believing the son is responsible for the tapes, Georges threatens him to cease surveillance, but the son replies he was not involved with the tapes and wanted to know how Georges felt about being responsible for a death. Later, Majid's son converses with Pierrot after school.


title: Caché (film)

text: A basis for the story was the massacre that took place in Paris on 17 October 1961, referenced by the character Georges:


title: Caché (film)

text: During the Algerian War, the National Liberation Front responded to the French right's attacks on France's Arabs, and as many as 200 protesters in Paris may have been shot or drowned in the Seine River. Maurice Papon was prefect of the Paris police, and previously served Vichy France; a book about Vichy is visible on Georges's shelf. In the aftermath of the massacre, the French government suppressed many of the facts by restricting police archives and delaying and cancelling public investigations, until allowing three historians to review the archives in 1998. The media reported three deaths in 1961; the massacre was not revisited until 1997 when Papon went to trial for his Vichy record.


title: Caché (film)

text: While planning the production of "Caché", Haneke learned about the massacre, and how information about it was withheld for years, after seeing a television documentary on Arte. He remarked, given France's free press, "I was totally shocked that I had never heard of this event before". He decided to work it into his story.


title: Caché (film)

text: Haneke began writing the screenplay by September 2001. He described a starting point: "I had been toying with the idea of writing a script in which someone is confronted with his guilt for something he did in childhood". In planning the film, he chose the thriller genre as a model but intended the true point to be an exploration of guilt; he deliberately left the question of who sent the tapes ambiguous:


title: Caché (film)

text: Haneke also left it ambiguous whether the young Georges's claim that Majid coughed blood was a lie, but said he viewed the depiction of Majid menacing Georges with an ax as a mere nightmare.


title: Caché (film)

text: While the Paris massacre inspired the plot, Haneke said the story was not about a "French problem" as something unusual, remarking, "This film was made in France, but I could have shot it with very few adjustments within an Austrian – or I'm sure an American – context". Another inspiration was a story he had heard from a friend, similar to that which Denis Podalydès's character tells when claiming to have a scar matching the wound of a dog killed on the day the character was born. Haneke explained, "I wrote it down when I got home and always wanted to use it. I think it sits well here because it makes people ask if it's true or not".


title: Caché (film)

text: While the filmmakers intended the production to be entirely French, they discovered they could not raise the funds in the one country. It received international backing from Films du Losange, Wega-Film, Bavaria Film and BIM Distribuzione which are respectively based in France, Austria, Germany and Italy. Haneke also secured funds from ORF in his native Austria, for a budget of €8 million.


title: Caché (film)

text: Haneke stated "Daniel Auteuil was the reason I wrote this script" and that he envisioned Auteuil and Binoche in the lead roles and had "almost all the actors in mind" while working on the screenplay. Haneke had never worked with Auteuil before, but chose him because he felt Auteuil always played his roles as if keeping a secret. Auteuil had learned of the 1961 massacre only after reading about it in "L'Obs" circa 1995; he accepted the role, interested in exploring the national conscience surrounding the incident, which made an impression on him. Juliette Binoche had previously starred in Haneke's 2000 "Code Unknown", where her character was also named Anne Laurent. She joined the cast, along with Auteuil, in fall 2002.


title: Caché (film)

text: Child actor Lester Makedonsky was cast as Pierrot, and because of his swimming skills, the filmmakers chose swimming as Pierrot's sport. Haneke had also worked with Maurice Bénichou before on "Code Unknown" and "Time of the Wolf" (2003), on "Code Unknown". and Annie Girardot in "The Piano Teacher". Nathalie Richard previously played a character named Mathilde in "Code Unknown", both being friends of the two versions of Anne Laurent.


title: Caché (film)

text: Principal photography took place at Rue des Iris and Rue Brillat-Savarin, Paris, where Haneke ordered parked vehicles arranged and rearranged to match his vision and prepare for tracking shots. Majid's neighbourhood was filmed on location at Avenue Lénine in Romainville. Interior scenes at the Laurent residence were shot in Vienna, Austria in August 2004. Interior scenes for Majid's apartment were also shot in Vienna, with Paris largely used for outdoor scenes, and stairs from Paris replicated in Vienna. Haneke said most of the filming likely took place in Vienna. It was the first film he made using high-definition video cameras; it also has no score, due to Haneke's belief that music conflicts with realism.


title: Caché (film)

text: For the scene in which a rooster is beheaded, a real chicken was used and actually killed. In the suicide scene, Haneke sought to create a realistic effect, remarking "if the suicide scene is not plausible then the entire film is spoiled". In the final scene, Lester Makedonsky and Walid Afkir are speaking dialogue Haneke scripted, but Haneke chose not to publish it and left it inaudible, and instructed the actors to never disclose it. Haneke chose a wide shot and positioned the extras so that viewers might not notice Makedonsky and Afkir. He described post-production as marked by arduous work on fixing the sound.


title: Caché (film)

text: Themes of collective memory and guilt over colonialism run through "Caché". When Majid commits suicide, Haneke connects "the personal and collective conscience", and how neither Georges nor his society has acknowledged the violence of colonialism, according to professor Ipek A. Celik. Scholar Susannah Radstone argues that while critics focused on the film as a statement on the Algerian War in particular, the story is generally about "the trauma of violence perpetuated upon the colonized and the guilt that now ought rightfully to be acknowledged by the colonial power". The French people refusing to accept the full truth of a moment of shame, the Paris massacre, underlines the scene where Georges tells Anne about Majid, according to academic Elsie Walker, with the pauses punctuating Georges's monologue belying the shame. After stating the date, Georges adds "Enough said", indicating the event was better-known by 2005, but also seemingly affirming silence about it; Walker points out that Georges ironically follows this with details. Professor Russell J.A. Kilbourn writes that Georges had suppressed his memories and his sense of guilt and that for Haneke, trauma is lived in the present through memory. Georges's dream, in which he sees young Majid kill the rooster, and then menace him with the ax, "presents a spectacle of real death in the place of any simulation or reconstruction of the events of October 1961", author Michael Lawrence writes.


title: Caché (film)

text: Present-day conflicts such as the Iraq War and the Israeli–Palestinian conflict are depicted through a Euronews broadcast seen in the film. Author Patrick Crowley writes these are used to represent "the return of the colonial repressed [...] within contemporary forms of imperialism", and that they are connected to the Paris massacre and the Holocaust. The film's connection between the Seine River massacre and the Holocaust, including Vichy's collaboration with the Nazis, is through Papon. The violence of colonialism, lasting into the present, is also depicted as entering private homes and the media in "hidden" ways, according to essayist Brianne Gallagher.


title: Caché (film)

text: Radstone argues the focus on surveillance and Georges's confrontation with a black cyclist indicate the perspective is that of "the privileged and anxious white middle class". Academic Eva Jørholt argues the film illustrates how white paranoia in the aftermath of colonialism explains racial discrimination in modern France. According to film studies scholar Maria Flood, Majid is largely kept invisible, and his suicide scene confronts viewers with society's marginal people. Celik added that historical revisionism in denying colonial crimes made "Caché" well-timed for 2005, with the rise of Jean-Marie Le Pen and the National Front.


title: Caché (film)

text: Professor Todd Herzog states that after the 11 September 2001 attacks, mass surveillance became commonplace. Herzog adds that "Caché" follows a tradition of cinema about surveillance, including "Blow-Up" (1966) and "The Conversation" (1974), but that "Caché" is distinctive in being "about being looked at rather than looking at something or someone". Haneke reveals life without privacy, Herzog writes. Qian He of the University of Washington writes the precise question of "who" is watching is the "question that haunts our daily life"; "Caché" is one film that explores the question, answers to which have included Google, Big Brother and God. Philosopher William G. Smith tied Haneke's ambiguity as to the sender of the tapes to philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche's writings on interpretation, quoting Haneke: "There are 1,000 truths. It's a matter of perspective".


title: Caché (film)

text: The setting of Rue des Iris has symbolic significance, as "iris" refers to a part of the human eye and to a camera diaphragm. Film studies professor Catherine Wheatley also observes a man sitting behind Anne and Pierre in the café and observing them. Lecturer Judit Pieldner observes Georges's shelves are lined with CDs, DVDs and videotapes, amounting to a celebration of media technology. The length of the tapes the Laurents receive is also stated at two hours, a nod to the typical capacity of VHS and Hi-8 videotape.


title: Caché (film)

text: Academic Jehanne-Marie Gavarini notes photography was employed to preserve memory in the 19th and 20th centuries, suggesting the videos in the story serve to assist remembering, as opposed to being evidence of surveillance as a terror tactic. Editors Amresh Sinha and Terence McSweeney also identified "Caché" as part of a 21st-century trend of films concerned with memory, along with "Memento", "Mulholland Drive", "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" and "Pan's Labyrinth". Gavarini quotes philosopher Martin Heidegger: Drawing on Heidegger's theories, Gavarini concludes "Caché" is a statement on "the virtual space of the screen".


title: Caché (film)

text: Scholar Hugh S. Manon hypothesises the surveillance represents psychiatrist Jacques Lacan's ""le regard" – 'the gaze'", as psychoanalysis, which Georges wishes to avoid. Manon suggests that unlike "Hidden", the French title "Caché" has a double meaning, referencing "masks" silent film cinematographers used to block parts of shots to highlight another element.


title: Caché (film)

text: Georges's general paranoia is observed in his failure to be open and forthright with his friends and employer. In his mind, "the enemy is everywhere", Wheatley writes. Smith considers the lack of communication between Georges and Anne originates "from everything that was swept under the rug".


title: Caché (film)

text: Anne's position as "moral compass" is made ambiguous by hints of possible adultery with Pierre, according to Wheatley. While no sex is shown, the characters' closeness in their café scene makes the notion appear possible though uncertain. Film professor Christopher Sharrett judges Pierrot's suspicions to be correct, given how Anne seeks Pierre for comfort, and suggests Pierrot "sees far more" than Anne realises. Pierrot's "mysterious, hostile behaviour", including accusing his mother of adultery, invites suspicion that he is behind the tapes. Wheatley compares Pierrot, as a child rebel against his elders, to the "Funny Games" murderers and the children in Haneke's 2009 "The White Ribbon". Academic Giuseppina Mecchia likened the film to Italian neo-realism in using a child's perspective to reveal adult dishonesty: child characters reveal Georges's dishonesty. Italian director Vittorio De Sica's 1944 "The Children Are Watching Us" has similar themes.


title: Caché (film)

text: Majid may also be trying to cope with trauma, with Gavarini writing Majid lives in poverty, "still haunted by the disappearance of his parents". There is a class separation between Majid and Georges, as Majid lives in an HLM and the settings reveal "markers of racial, cultural, and class-based polarizations", according to film studies professor Malini Guha. Gavarini identifies him as the guilty party in the tapes, and submits the drawings attached to the tapes are Majid's attempts at understanding his past, and communicating these thoughts to Georges, unable to verbally communicate them. The viewer is invited to ponder what Majid's son has inherited from his father; Georges questions the son on "what dumb obsession [Majid] passed down", though Wheatley argues that if the son is telling the truth that Majid raised him properly, he would not hate Georges.


title: Caché (film)

text: Haneke had previously used the names Anne and Georges Laurent in "Code Unknown" and Anna and Georg in "Funny Games" (1997). Binoche played Anne Laurent in "Code Unknown" and "Caché", and Mathilde is Anne's friend in both films. Lawrence suggests Haneke used this character-naming method to downplay "individualization" and allow the audience to see the characters as "multiple versions of a particular type". Haneke himself said that he sought short character names to avoid "any hidden metaphorical meaning" detracting from realism.


title: Caché (film)

text: Generally, Haneke's style has been described as displaying "an aesthetics of dread"; a feeling of "existential dread" or "ambient dread" is also present in "Caché". The story has been described as a "psychological thriller"; the British Film Institute stated it employs "classical suspense strategies" to enter the thriller genre. Wheatley adds the techniques differ from the Hitchcockian style by withholding information from the audience until characters disclose it, and not being clear as to whether the characters are honest and whether the flashbacks are real. According to Radstone, the style is characterised by "its closed-in camerawork, its aesthetic and narrative concerns with surveillance, its claustrophobic interiority". Film studies professor Oliver C. Speck has written that Haneke rejected "pseudo-realism" in its recreations of Georges's childhood.


title: Caché (film)

text: Though it resembles a whodunit, the film does not reveal who sent the tapes. A solution may not be possible, as given the setting and the camerawork, the camera could not record without being seen when Georges looks into it, Herzog writes. This suggests Haneke himself is sending the tapes in the story. Georges has no reason to send the tapes to himself and Anne, and the idea that Georges is unconsciously and psychically producing the tapes contradicts the realistic style.


title: Caché (film)

text: Noting that the opening sequence is characterised by a lengthy take in which the camera is stationary and focused on a street, with a "crowded composition" and a two-storey house in the centre, essayist Jonathan Thomas compares this to a photograph, along with sounds of birds, and described it as "idyllic". Professor Brigitte Peucker calls it "slice-of-life realism", comparing it to the opening of Alfred Hitchcock's similarly surveillance-themed "Rear Window" (1954). The opening credits appear over the shot, in a style suggesting they are being typed. After two minutes and no cut, the "stillness" starts to "weigh" on the viewer. Pieldner compared this to Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni's technique of "temps mort", where a shot goes on even after the storytelling seems to have ceased.


title: Caché (film)

text: Wheatley notes the "painstaking arrangement" of the four-minute final shot's "mise-en-scène", inviting viewers to seek clues, though many viewers missed the meeting between the sons suggesting they are co-conspirators. The shot is still, with two doors in symmetry, parents wearing brown and beige, and a "content murmur".


title: Caché (film)

text: Throughout the film, images are spliced, from the "dramatic present", "prerecorded video", seeing Georges on television, and flashbacks, according to Thomas. Gavarini asserts that the opening is deceptive as to whether the viewer is seeing from the protagonists' perspective, producing "confusion between the director's camera and the diegetic video" and involving the audience as perpetrators of the surveillance. Speck likens the lengthy takes to "visual rhymes". Thomas writes that the high definition makes them "materially homogeneous", with no grain or noise. Speck adds that the digital film clouds distinctions between the surveillance footage and other scenes, removing "ontological certainty". The colour scheme, observable in the Laurents' apartment, focuses on grey, brown and beige and communicates dissatisfaction; Haneke had employed it before in "The Piano Teacher".


title: Caché (film)

text: In the stressful scene where Anne and Georges realise Pierrot is missing, Euronews plays in the background covering Barbara Contini in Iraq and Palestinians being killed in a protest; Walker notes that the background volume remains louder than the Laurent dialogue, while "classical realism" would require the viewer to lose interest in the background news.


title: Caché (film)

text: By fall 2002, Mars Distribution had signed on as the French distributor. The film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2005, where distributors purchased release rights, including Sony Pictures Classics for the United States. It subsequently screened at the 2005 Toronto International Film Festival, the Telluride Film Festival and the New York Film Festival.


title: Caché (film)

text: In France, "Caché" opened on 5 October 2005. Its poster featured a blood spray alluding to the suicide scene. It opened in New York City and Los Angeles on 23 December 2005, and in the United Kingdom on 27 January 2006, distributed by Artificial Eye. To market the film, Artificial Eye designed a trailer with no music and heavy dialogue with subtitles, emphasising a complicated plot. By the end of January, Sony expanded the release to Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, Montreal, and other cities. The UK Film Council also approved "Caché", under the title "Hidden", for screenings in multiplexes, based on an assessment it could have commercial appeal.


title: Caché (film)

text: It was released on DVD in Region 1 in June 2006, along with Yves Montmayeur's documentary "Hidden Side". That month, Artificial Eye also published a single-disc Region 2 DVD, later including it in its "The Essential Michael Haneke" DVD boxset in October 2009.


title: Caché (film)

text: By the beginning of November, Films du Losange found the film was performing "strongly" in France. In the United States and Canada, Sony moved it from 10 to 22 screens by 25 January 2006 to gross $718,406. It opened in the United Kingdom making £169,000 in its first weekend, reaching £1 million by 24 March 2006.


title: Caché (film)

text: The film finished its run grossing $3.6 million in the U.S. and £1.1 million in the U.K., more than any previous Haneke film in either country. It grossed US$16,197,824 worldwide. Peter Cowie and Pascal Edelmann summarised "Caché"s box office performance as having "considerable success".


title: Caché (film)

text: The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported an 89% approval rating based on 135 reviews, with an average rating of 7.85/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "A creepy French psychological thriller that commands the audience's attention throughout". On Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 based on reviews from critics, the film has a score of 83 based on 37 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".


title: Caché (film)

text: In "Le Monde", Jean-François Rauger wrote that while Haneke may be heavy-handed in his negative outlook and use of news about war in the Middle East playing the background, the atmosphere of terror deserved credit. "Le Parisien" gave it three out of four stars, declaring it an excellent thriller, citing Annie Girardot for her performance as the mother. For "Les Inrockuptibles", Serge Kaganski compared the opening to David Lynch's "Lost Highway" and wrote the suspense developed from there, and that Binoche and Auteuil convey the anxiety, Auteuil more internally. "Variety" critic Deborah Young reviewed Haneke's pacing favorably and found themes of responsibility, regarding France and Algeria but tied into the United States and Europe in the Iraq War. "The Hollywood Reporter"s Kirk Honeycutt credited the film for a thorough exploration of "guilt, communication and willful amnesia", and praised the cinematography. "Film Comment" contributor Michael Joshua Rowin considered it Haneke's most political work to date, "not merely liberal hand wringing" in its depiction of "passive-aggressive oppression and its manifestation as a slow-building, unresolved societal tension". A.O. Scott wrote that while he could criticise it as a liberal exercise in inducing guilt, it was "hard to deny its creepy, insinuating power". Roger Ebert awarded it four stars, lauding its focus on "paranoia and distrust" rather than providing a whodunit conclusion, and remarking on the way characters hide so much from each other, reflecting the title. "The Guardian"s Peter Bradshaw gave the film five out of five stars, describing it as "one of the great films of this decade" and "Haneke's masterpiece". For the BBC, Matthew Leyland gave it four stars, citing the mounting suspense over themes of guilt. In a review for "The Atlantic", Christopher Orr described "Caché" as "a broad political allegory about Western guilt and a meditation on the nature of seeing." "Film Quarterly" critic Ara Osterweil compared "Caché" to the 1966 "Blow-Up" in making "challenges naïve assumptions of ocular mastery".


title: Caché (film)

text: "Caché"'s detractors include Andrew Sarris of "The New York Observer", who wrote, "Too much of the plot's machinery turns out to be a metaphorical mechanism by which to pin the tail of colonial guilt on Georges and the rest of us smug bourgeois donkeys". In the "San Francisco Chronicle", Mick LaSalle called it "a handsome fraud [...] in its style, technique and ultimate message", becoming dull and "a drab social polemic". "The Nation"s Stuart Klawans judged it not a statement of "liberal guilt" but "liberal self-regard" in having Majid choose to die for Georges's sake, in Klawans's interpretation. Jonathan Rosenbaum of "The Chicago Reader" called "Caché" a "brilliant if unpleasant puzzle without a solution", writing that "Haneke is so punitive toward the couple and his audience that I periodically rebelled against—or went into denial about—the director's rage, and I guess that's part of the plan." Calum Marsh of "Slant Magazine" writes that in "Caché" "Haneke’s predilection for deceit served a high-minded, if still somewhat suspect, intellectual purpose".


title: Caché (film)

text: Ebert added the film to his Great Movies list in 2010, expressing disbelief about missing a possible "smoking gun" after two viewings, crediting Juliette Binoche for a naturalistic performance, and pondered the 1961 massacre: "Has France hidden it in its memory?" Also in 2010, Ebert further explored the whodunit question, considering the motives of various characters. Ebert questioned whether the last scene's encounter between Pierrot and Majid's son is the first time they met, or one of many encounters. He concluded Majid's son must be at least partly responsible and that Pierrot is a possible accomplice, as it is not clear where he is in many scenes. In his "2014 Movie Guide", Leonard Maltin gave it three stars, calling it "icily meticulous, if protracted".


title: Caché (film)

text: "Caché" was among the most acclaimed films of the 2000s. In 2009, "Caché" was named 44th in "The Daily Telegraph"s list of "The films that defined the noughties", and 36th in "The Guardian"s "100 best films of the noughties". The film was ranked 73rd in "Empire" magazine's "The 100 Best Films Of World Cinema" in 2010. "Caché" received 19 total votes in the 2012 "Sight & Sound" polls of the greatest films ever made; it is 154th among critics and 75th among directors. In 2016, critics also voted it the 23rd best in BBC's 100 Greatest Films of the 21st Century.


title: Caché (film)

text: "Caché" competed for the Palme d'Or at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival, where polled critics and festival audiences considered it a frontrunner. Ultimately, the jury awarded Haneke Best Director. It went on to win numerous other awards. At the European Film Awards, it competed with the Cannes Palme d'Or winner, "L'Enfant" by the Dardenne brothers, with "Caché" winning five awards, including Best Film.


title: Caché (film)

text: The film was submitted as Austria's entry for Best Foreign Language Film at the 78th Academy Awards, but was disqualified as French is not predominantly the language of Austria. As Haneke is Austrian, it would have also been disqualified if France or any other country had submitted it. The exclusion sparked criticism, with Sony Pictures Classics co-president Michael Barker calling it "unfortunate" and saying the story demanded the film be in French. Austria's Fachverband der Audiovisions und Filmindustrie protested the criteria, and Haneke, whose previous French-language "The Piano Teacher" was not disqualified as the Austrian submission, also called the rules "really stupid". Academy member Mark Johnson responded, "We're in the process right now of considering some very radical changes".


title: Caché (film)

text: The film's French release preceded the 2005 French riots, beginning with three deaths on 27 October; professor Gemma King writes the film offered a progressive perspective in contrast to the real-life divisions in the wake of the riots. According to Walker, the riots' occurrence shortly after the film's release made it seem "uncannily resonant"; Radstone cites the riots to interpret the film as a statement on racial tensions felt by whites. King observes "Caché" is one of a growing number of French films that take a progressive view of the country's colonial past, and that films about Algeria became more common in later years.


title: Caché (film)

text: Following the film's disqualification at the Academy Awards, the Academy revised its rules so as to emphasise the filmmaker's origin over the country's language for eligibility for Best Foreign Language Film. Subsequently, Haneke's 2012 French-language "Amour" won the award for Austria.


title: Caché (film)

text: In 2015, IndieWire reporter Ryan Lattanzio reported rumours that U.S. producers had wanted to remake Haneke's film and compared Joel Edgerton's "The Gift" to a remake. "Variety" critic Scott Foundas also said "The Gift" resembled "Caché" in attempting to explore a "moral and existential minefield". Edgerton cited "Caché" as an influence on "The Gift", and has said Haneke's film illustrates "how unsettled you can be by the thing you never see". He added, "The idea of a villain who is able to actively dismantle another person's life from the shadows is often scarier" than a visible threat.


title: Joey Merlino

text: Joseph Salvatore "Skinny Joey" Merlino (born March 13, 1962) is an Italian-American mobster and reputed boss of the Philadelphia crime family. He rose to power in the mid-nineties after he allegedly fought a war for control of the criminal organization. He has led the crime family in gambling, loan sharking, drug trafficking, and extortion. In comparison to other traditional mob bosses who shunned the limelight, Merlino has interacted regularly with the media and the public, often openly providing charity and hosting events to benefit indigent people in Philadelphia, drawing comparisons to the similarly outgoing, conspicuous, and ostensibly charitable late New York crime boss John Gotti. He is the son of deceased Philadelphia crime family underboss Chuckie Merlino.


title: Joey Merlino

text: With the help of boss-turned-informant Ralph Natale, Merlino was convicted of several RICO charges including racketeering, illegal gambling and extortion, in 2001, and sentenced to 14 years in prison. Since his release from prison in 2011, the FBI and organized crime reporters believe he continues to run the Philadelphia–South Jersey Mafia. Merlino disputes this, saying he has retired from a life of crime. As of 2015, Merlino divides his time between south Florida and Philadelphia.


title: Joey Merlino

text: Merlino was born on March 13, 1962, in Philadelphia to Italian-American parents Salvatore "Chuckie" Merlino and Rita Giordano. Merlino was raised in South Philadelphia and Ventnor City, New Jersey. He is also the nephew of deceased Philadelphia crime family mobster-turned government witness Lawrence "Yogi" Merlino. Joey's sister, Maria, was briefly engaged to Salvatore Testa.


title: Joey Merlino

text: He had been friends with future made man in the Philadelphia crime family Michael "Mikey Chang" Ciancaglini and his brother Joseph "Joey Chang" Ciancaglini Jr. since attending St. Thomas Aquinas grade school in Philadelphia's Point Breeze neighborhood. Merlino's father owned and operated the 9M Bar in Southwark that Nicky Scarfo used as his criminal headquarters during his attempt to become the new boss of the Philadelphia crime family.


title: Joey Merlino

text: In August 1982 at age 20, Merlino and Salvatore Scafidi, son of bookmaker Gaetano Scafidi Sr., beat and stabbed two male patrons at the Lido Restaurant in Atlantic City. In 1984 Merlino was found guilty on two counts of aggravated assault and one count of possession of a weapon for unlawful purpose. In August 1984 he was banned by the New Jersey Casino Control Commission from New Jersey casinos. His father Salvatore would also be banned by the same commission as his son for his criminal activities on May 23, 1984. Nicky Scarfo demoted his father Salvatore from his position as underboss to soldier because of his father's alcoholism. In 1988 Salvatore was sentenced to 45 years in federal prison for two counts of racketeering and drug trafficking.


title: Joey Merlino

text: Joseph Merlino has been described as a particularly vicious person, obsessed with his own public image, and another version of New York's John Gotti. "Joey was a party guy," said mob associate Ron Previte, a police officer-turned gangster-turned government witness. "He liked to go out. He liked to gamble. He liked the high life." He invited TV crews to his annual Christmas party for the homeless, and was a fixture at the city's nightclubs, restaurants, and sporting events. Along with his longtime buddies and future mobsters, he was known to beat up people, rob people, and start fights in clubs.


title: Joey Merlino

text: On October 31, 1989, Nicky Jr., the son of imprisoned Philadelphia family boss Nicky Scarfo Sr., was shot in an Italian restaurant in Bella Vista. The younger Scarfo was shot eight times with a MAC-10, but was not hit in any vital organs. He quickly recovered and left the hospital less than two weeks later. No one was ever charged with the attempted murder, but the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and local law enforcement believe Merlino carried out the shooting to settle a score between the Scarfos and Merlinos and to show that the elder Scarfo had no more power in Philadelphia. Merlino denied any involvement and claimed he was at home under house arrest the night of the shooting. Years later when a TV reporter approached Merlino and asked about a rumoured $500,000 bounty on his life, Merlino responded "Give me the half million dollars and I’ll shoot myself."


title: Joey Merlino

text: In August 1989, Merlino was charged with interstate theft and conspiracy charges stemming from an incident where $352,000 was stolen from a Federal Armored Express truck in 1987. In January 1990, Merlino was convicted of planning the heist and sentenced to three years in prison.


title: Joey Merlino

text: Merlino served his sentence at the Federal Correctional Institution, McKean, where he met mobster Ralph Natale in 1990. Natale was a longtime mobster who was serving a 15-year prison sentence for arson and drug trafficking. According to Natale, he and Merlino began plotting to take over the Philadelphia crime family during this period. Natale named Michael Ciancaglini, Steven Mazzone, George Borgesi, Gaetano "Tommy Horsehead" Scafidi and Martin Angelina as Merlino's key associates and co-conspirators in the plan. These men were all close friends of Merlino since high school and started moving in on criminal rackets in Philadelphia. When John Stanfa emerged as the new leader of the Philadelphia family in 1991, the young group of mobsters openly rebelled against him. The "Young Turks" as the press would eventually dub Merlino's tight-knit crew, struck first with the killing of Felix Bocchino on January 29, 1992. Merlino was released from prison in April 1992.


title: Joey Merlino

text: In an attempt to quell further violence, Stanfa officially inducted Merlino and his best friend Michael Ciancaglini into the crime family. Stanfa hoped he would be able to keep tabs on the Merlino crew and make it easier to kill them if necessary. While this act of diplomacy temporarily ended the violence, by 1993 an all-out war broke out between Stanfa and Merlino. On August 5, 1993, Merlino survived a drive-by shooting assassination attempt by two Stanfa gunmen, taking four bullets in the leg and buttocks, while Ciancaglini was shot in the chest and died. On August 31, 1993, a drive by shooting was performed on Stanfa and his son while they were driving on the Schuylkill Expressway. Stanfa escaped uninjured and his son survived being shot in the jaw. On September 17, 1993, a friend of Merlino's was shot and killed by Stanfa gunmen. Stanfa gunman Philip Colletti testified in court that he planted a remote control bomb under Merlino's car several times, but that it failed to go off every time. In November 1993, Merlino was arrested by the FBI, charged with violation of his supervised release, and sent back to prison.


title: Joey Merlino

text: Stanfa was arrested for Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act violations in March 1994, was convicted in 1995, and sentenced to life in 1996. With most of Stanfa's supporters also arrested and convicted, Merlino, released from prison in November 1994, won the war and named Ralph Natale as the new boss while positioning himself as his underboss. During Natale's reign, Merlino was the real power in the family, allowing Natale to become boss to direct law enforcement attention away from himself. Nevertheless, Merlino gained notoriety as a flamboyant, celebrity gangster who often went out partying with a large entourage. The press dubbed him the "John Gotti of Passyunk Avenue" due to his candid demeanor in front of news cameras (Passyunk Avenue being a street in South Philadelphia). He also invited the press when he held Christmas parties for the homeless and gave away turkeys at Thanksgiving in housing projects.


title: Joey Merlino

text: The arrogance and aggressiveness of Merlino‘s young faction turned off a lot of criminals from working with the crime family. Merlino would often make big bets with bookies and refuse to pay when he lost. This practice, known as guzzling, was used on both independent and mob run bookies. During this time, Merlino and Natale oversaw the crime family's gambling, loan sharking, extortion and stolen goods rackets.


title: Joey Merlino

text: In 1995, Louis Turra, leader of the Philadelphia drug gang the 10th and Oregon crew (also known as the 10th and O gang), was severely beaten by Merlino's men, allegedly for failing to pay a Mafia street tax on the gang's illegal earnings. Angered by the beating, Turra sought vengeance. His father Anthony hosted a meeting at his house during which Anthony, Louis and his gang discussed killing Merlino. In January 1998, Louis Turra apparently hanged himself in a New York City jail while awaiting trial. In March 1998, Anthony Turra, on trial on charges of plotting to kill Merlino, was shot dead outside his home by a gunman in a black ski mask. He was shot twice as he left for the federal courthouse. "We consider this an organized crime assassination, a mob hit," Police Inspector Jerrold Kane said. Three years later, Merlino was put on trial for helping orchestrate the murder, but was acquitted.


title: Joey Merlino

text: By the late 1990s, Merlino dodged more than two dozen attempts on his life. Merlino was friends with Steve "Gorilla" Mondevergine, president of the Pagans MC motorcycle club. Merlino sometimes used the Pagans to help settle underworld disputes. During the 1990s, Merlino was also aligned with members of the Junior Black Mafia. Following Natale's arrest for parole violation in 1999, Merlino officially took over the crime family, cutting off Natale.


title: Joey Merlino

text: On June 28, 1999, Merlino was indicted and detained without bail on one charge of conspiracy to distribute more than five kilograms of cocaine and one charge of unlawful use of a communication facility in relation to a drug trafficking offense. The charges were later expanded to include racketeering and ordering or approving three murders and two attempted murders. Six other men were also put on trial. The prosecution's case was aided by several of Merlino's former Mafia cohorts agreeing to cooperate with the government. Natale agreed to cooperate in order to escape drug trafficking charges in 1999. Gaetano "Tommy Horsehead" Scafidi agreed to cooperate in 2000 while finishing a prison sentence due to fears that he would be murdered by Merlino's crew. Peter "the Crumb" Caprio agreed to cooperate with the government in 2000 after being charged with two murders and Ron Previte testified after becoming an undercover informant several years prior. They all testified that Natale and Merlino started a mob war to take over the Philadelphia crime family and that Merlino committed various criminal acts in the 1990s.


title: Joey Merlino

text: On July 20, 2001, the jury returned a mixed verdict. Merlino was acquitted of all three counts of murder and two counts of attempted murder; however, he was found guilty of racketeering charges including extortion, bookmaking and receiving stolen property. Along with Merlino, six of his peers were also convicted of various racketeering related charges. On December 3, 2001 Judge Herbert J. Hutton gave Merlino a 14-year prison sentence. Commenting on his conviction, "Ain't bad," Merlino said. "Better than the death penalty." A month after the verdict, Merlino was indicted in federal court again for the 1996 murder of Joseph Sodano, despite a jury finding the murder charge "not proven" as a RICO predicate act. In March 2004, Merlino was acquitted of Sodano's murder as a violent crime in aid of racketeering.


title: Joey Merlino

text: Merlino served his prison sentence at the Federal Correctional Institution in Terre Haute, Indiana. Merlino was released from the correctional facility on March 15, 2011 after serving almost 12 years of his sentence. He was transferred to a halfway house in Florida for six months and then was on supervised release until 2015. On January 4, 2015, just before his parole restrictions expired, Judge Richard Barclay Surrick gave Merlino a four-month prison sentence for violating his supervised release by meeting with organized crime figures in Florida. On April 24, 2015, Merlino was released from the Federal Detention Center, Miami after his sentence was vacated. He was released 10 days early and was free of any post-release restrictions after he won an appeal from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.


title: Joey Merlino

text: After his release in 2011, Merlino moved to Boca Raton, Florida. In a 2013 interview with George Anastasia, Merlino denied any current involvement in the Philadelphia Mafia and has stated that his life as a criminal is over. He was quoted in the interview stating "I want no part of that" and that there were "too many rats." In November 2014, Merlino opened a restaurant in Boca Raton named "Merlino's", that featured his mother's recipes. The restaurant was owned by a group of investors; Merlino is forbidden from owning an establishment that serves alcohol due to his criminal record. Instead, Merlino officially worked there as a maître d' until the restaurant closed in 2016. On September 7, 2016, the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board banned Merlino from all casinos in Pennsylvania.


title: Joey Merlino

text: On August 4, 2016, Merlino was one of 46 people arrested up and down the East Coast in a RICO indictment. Merlino was arrested at his home in Florida and put on trial in New York City. Merlino was charged with one count of racketeering, one count of fraud and two counts of illegal gambling. Merlino was accused of entering into illegal business arrangements with New York criminals in the Genovese crime family. Merlino was also accused of taking part in a massive medical fraud scheme in Florida that had doctors prescribe patients with unnecessary (and ineffective) medical products and billing patients' insurance companies. On August 12, Merlino was released on a $5 million bond.


title: Joey Merlino

text: The other 45 men charged in the broad indictment accepted favorable plea bargains and pleaded guilty to reduced charges. Merlino refused any plea offer and went to trial on January 30, 2018. The trial concluded after two weeks of testimony. On February 20, Judge Richard J. Sullivan declared a mistrial after the jury was unable to reach a unanimous verdict on any of the four counts against Merlino. To avoid a retrial, Merlino entered into a plea deal with federal prosecutors on April 27. He agreed to plead guilty to one charge of facilitating illegal gambling transactions via an electronic device in exchange for the U.S. Attorney's Office dropping the remaining charges against him and recommending a prison sentence between 10–16 months. On October 17, Merlino was sentenced to the maximum of two years in prison. In October 2019, Merlino was granted an early release and moved to a halfway house to finish the rest of his sentence, later given supervised release in South Florida.


title: Microsoft Office Mix

text: Microsoft Office Mix (or simply "Office Mix") was a service offered by Microsoft as part of their Office suite. Introduced in 2014, Mix was offered as part of an Office 365 subscription, before it was retired on May 1, 2018 The Office Mix website remains active, however upon visiting the site, it presents a message that states that the service is now unavailable.


title: Microsoft Office Mix

text: Office Mix was an Office add-in that integrated into the PowerPoint program that was intended as an educational service to assist teachers with creating interactive class presentations. It allowed the user to perform various tasks such as inserting ink, narrations, polls, and screen captures directly into the presentation, share their creation (otherwise referred to as a (singular) "mix" or (plural) "mixes") by exporting the mix into a computer video format or publishing it to online Office 365 Video platform, and view statistical data on users viewing their creations through analytics tools. The service was available for Office 2013 and Office 2016 and it was only made available to the Windows operating system.


title: Microsoft Office Mix

text: Office Mix did not come embedded into the PowerPoint program. Instead, the user had to obtain the Office Mix add-in installer through the mix.office.com website in order to integrate the Office Mix add-in to the PowerPoint program and a global tab named "Mix" would appear across the application's interface where the user could access various options related to Office Mix.


title: Microsoft Office Mix

text: "Note: The user would be required to attest their ownership of an active Office 365 subscription through their personal Microsoft account or one that is managed by their organization or institution, or a compatible external SSO service such as a Google account or Facebook account."


title: Microsoft Office Mix

text: Beginning May 1, 2018, the Office Mix service was officially retired by Microsoft and became inaccessible to all customers after users were sent an e-mail notification issuing them several months to retrieve all of their content and mixes off of the platform prior to shutdown. After the discontinuation, the features of Office Mix were instead embedded into the PowerPoint program to users who obtained Office via an Office 365 subscription which remain available.


title: Qingming Festival

text: The Qingming festival or Ching Ming Festival, also known as Tomb-Sweeping Day in English (sometimes also called Chinese Memorial Day or Ancestors' Day), is a traditional Chinese festival observed by the Han Chinese of mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macau, and by the ethnic Chinese of Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore, Cambodia, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam and Panama. It falls on the first day of the fifth solar term of the traditional Chinese lunisolar calendar. This makes it the 15th day after the Spring Equinox, either 4, 5 or 6 April in a given year. During Qingming, Chinese families visit the tombs of their ancestors to clean the gravesites, pray to their ancestors and make ritual offerings. Offerings would typically include traditional food dishes and the burning of joss sticks and joss paper. The holiday recognizes the traditional reverence of one's ancestors in Chinese culture.


title: Qingming Festival

text: The Qingming Festival has been observed by the Chinese for over 2500 years, although the observance has changed significantly. It became a public holiday in mainland China in 2008, where it is associated with the consumption of "qingtuan", green dumplings made of glutinous rice and Chinese mugwort or barley grass.


title: Qingming Festival

text: In Taiwan, the public holiday was in the past observed on 5 April to honor the death of Chiang Kai-shek on that day in 1975, but with Chiang's popularity waning, this convention is not being observed. A confection called "caozaiguo" or "shuchuguo", made with Jersey cudweed, is consumed there.


title: Qingming Festival

text: The festival originated from the Cold Food or Hanshi Festival which remembered Jie Zitui, a nobleman of the state of Jin (modern Shanxi) during the Spring and Autumn Period. Amid the Li Ji Unrest, he followed his master Prince Chong'er in 655BC to exile among the Di tribes and around China. Supposedly, he once even cut flesh from his own thigh to provide his lord with soup. In 636BC, Duke Mu of Qin invaded Jin and enthroned Chong'er as its duke, where he was generous in rewarding those who had helped him in his time of need. Owing either to his own high-mindedness or to the duke's neglect, however, Jie was long passed over. He finally retired to the forest around Mount Mian with his elderly mother. The duke went to the forest in but could not find them. He then ordered his men to set fire to the forest in order to force Jie out. When Jie and his mother were killed instead, the duke was overcome with remorse and erected a temple in his honor. The people of Shanxi subsequently revered Jie as an immortal and avoided lighting fires for as long as a month in the depths of winter, a practice so injurious to children and the elderly that the area's rulers unsuccessfully attempted to ban it for centuries. A compromise finally developed where it was restricted to 3 days around the Qingming solar term in mid-spring.


title: Qingming Festival

text: The present importance of the holiday is credited to Emperor Xuanzong of Tang. Wealthy citizens in China were reportedly holding too many extravagant and ostentatiously expensive ceremonies in honor of their ancestors. In , Xuanzong sought to curb this practice by declaring that such respects could be formally paid only once a year, on Qingming.