The Muppets

The Muppets are a group ofpuppet characters created by Jim Henson starting in 1954–55. Although the term is often used to refer to anypuppet that resembles the distinc

tive style of The Muppet Show, the term is both an informal name and legal trademark owned by the Walt Disney Company in reference to the original characters created by Henson.

The word "Muppet" itself first appeared in 1956, and was said by Henson to have been created by combining the words "Marionette" and "puppet". However, Jim Henson was also known to have stated that it was just something he liked the sound of, and he made up the "marionette/puppet" story while talking to a journalist because it sounded plausible.

After earlier unsuccessful attempts, The Walt Disney Company bought the Muppets in 2004. Exceptions include characters appearing on Sesame Street (as they were previously sold to Sesame Workshop, although they have always had creative rights, only paying The Jim Henson Company to create and provide their Muppet characters for their use) and the Fraggles of Fraggle Rock (which are still owned byThe Jim Henson Company). The legal trademark on the term "Muppet" is currently held by The Muppets Studio, a division of The Walt Disney Company, although Sesame Workshop and The Jim Henson Company continue to use the term on their characters with certain permissions from Disney.

A new eponymous movie written by Jason Segel and Nicholas Stoller and directed by James Bobin is due for theatrical release in November, 2011. This will be the first Muppet theatrical film since Muppets from Space from 1999.

The Muppets' latest television special, A Muppets Christmas: Letters to Santa, premiered on NBC on December 17, 2008. It was released on DVD on September 29, 2009. A Halloween TV special featuring the Muppets was expected to air onABC in October 2010, but was shelved due to the upcoming film.

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was born in Transkei, South Africa on July 18, 1918. His father was Chief Henry Mandela of the Tembu Tribe. Mandela himself was educated at University College of Fort Hare and the University of Witwatersrand and qualified in law in 1942. He joined the African National Congress in 1944 and was engaged in resistance against the ruling National Party's apartheid policies after 1948. He went on trial for treason in 1956-1961 and was acquitted in 1961.

After the banning of the ANC in 1960, Nelson Mandela argued for the setting up of a military wing within the ANC. In June 1961, the ANC executive considered his proposal on the use of violent tactics and agreed that those members who wished to involve themselves in Mandela's campaign would not be stopped from doing so by the ANC. This led to the formation of Umkhonto we Sizwe. Mandela was arrested in 1962 and sentenced to five years' imprisonment with hard labour. In 1963, when many fellow leaders of the ANC and the Umkhonto we Sizwe were arrested, Mandela was brought to stand trial with them for plotting to overthrow the government by violence. His statement from the dock received considerable international publicity. On June 12, 1964, eight of the accused, including Mandela, were sentenced to life imprisonment. From 1964 to 1982, he was incarcerated at Robben Island Prison, off Cape Town; thereafter, he was at Pollsmoor Prison, nearby on the mainland.

During his years in prison, Nelson Mandela's reputation grew steadily. He was widely accepted as the most significant black leader in South Africa and became a potent symbol of resistance as the anti-apartheid movement gathered strength. He consistently refused to compromise his political position to obtain his freedom.

Nelson Mandela was released on February 11, 1990. After his release, he plunged himself wholeheartedly into his life's work, striving to attain the goals he and others had set out almost four decades earlier. In 1991, at the first national conference of the ANC held inside South Africa after the organization had been banned in 1960, Mandela was elected President of the ANC while his lifelong friend and colleague, Oliver Tambo, became the organisation's National Chairperson.

From Les Prix Nobel. The Nobel Prizes 1993, Editor Tore Frängsmyr, [Nobel Foundation], Stockholm, 1994

This autobiography/biography was written at the time of the award and later published in the book seriesLes Prix Nobel/Nobel Lectures. The information is sometimes updated with an addendum submitted by the Laureate.

Grimm's Fairy Tales

Children's and Household Tales (German: Kinder- und Hausmärchen) is a collection of German origin fairy tales first published in 1812 byJacob and Wilhelm Grimm, the Brothers Grimm. The collection is commonly known today as Grimms' Fairy Tales (German: Grimms Märchen).

Composition

On December 20, 1812, they published the first volume of the first edition, containing 86 stories; the second volume of 70 stories followed in 1814. For the second edition, two volumes were issued in 1819 and a third in 1822, totalling 170 tales. The third edition appeared in 1837; fourth edition, 1840; fifth edition, 1843; sixth edition, 1850; seventh edition, 1857. Stories were added, and also subtracted, from one edition to the next, until the seventh held 211 tales. All editions were extensively illustrated, first by Philipp Grot Johann and, after his death in 1892, by Robert Leinweber.

The Brothers investigated in the valley of the Weser to collect oral folk tales that they believed had their origins in authentic German tradition. They did not realize that much of the folklore that was transmitted to them was of French origin, especially the tales they gathered from the storyteller Dorothée Viehman, who provided The Brothers Grimm with 19 of their best stories. Viehman was the grand-daughter of Isaac Pierson, a huguenot from Metz.

The first volumes were much criticized because, although they were called "Children's Tales", they were not regarded as suitable for children, both for the scholarly information included and the subject matter.^[1] Many changes through the editions – such as turning the wicked mother of the first edition in Snow White and Hansel and Gretel to a stepmother, were probably made with an eye to such suitability. They removed sexual references—such as Rapunzel's innocently asking why her dress was getting tight around her belly, and thus naïvely revealing her pregnancy and the prince's visits to her stepmother—but, in many respects, violence, particularly when punishing villains, was increased.^[2]

In 1825 the Brothers published their Kleine Ausgabe or "small edition," a selection of 50 tales designed for child readers. This children's version went through ten editions between 1825 and 1858

Influence of the books

The influence of these books was widespread. W. H. Auden praised the collection, during World War II, as one of the founding works of Western culture.^[3] The tales themselves have been put to many uses. The Nazis praised them as folkish tales showing children with sound racial instincts seeking racially pure marriage partners, and so strongly that the Allied forces warned against them;^[4] for instance, Cinderella with the heroine as racially pure, the stepmother as an alien, and the prince with an unspoiled instinct being able to distinguish.^[5] Writers who have written about the Holocaust have combined the tales with their memoirs, as Jane Yolen in her Briar Rose.^[6]

The work of the Brothers Grimm influenced other collectors, both inspiring them to collect tales and leading them to similarly believe, in a spirit of romantic nationalism, that the fairy tales of a country were particularly representative of it, to the neglect of cross-cultural influence. Among those influenced were the RussianAlexander Afanasyev, the Norwegians Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe, the English Joseph Jacobs, and Jeremiah Curtin, an American who collected Irish tales.^[7] There was not always a pleased reaction to their collection. Joseph Jacobs was in part inspired by his complaint that English children did not read English fairy tales;^[8] in his own words, "What Perrault began, the Grimms completed".

Three individual works of Wilhelm Grimm include Altdänische Heldenlieder, Balladen und Märchen (Old Danish Heroic Lays, Ballads, and Folktales) in 1811 Über deutsche Runen (On German Runes) in 1821. Die deutsche Heldensage (The German Heroic Legend) in 1829.