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Information about Masterpiece Theatre

Masterpiece Theatre

The Masterpiece Theatre
GenreAnthology
Presented byAlistair Cooke
Russell Baker
Theme music composerJean-Joseph Mouret
Opening themeSymphonies and Fanfares for the King's Supper
Country of origin United States
Broadcast
Original channelPBS (1971-present)
Original runJanuary 10 1971 – Present
External links
Official website


Masterpiece Theatre is a drama anthology television series produced by WGBH Boston. It premiered on PBS on January 10, 1971, making it America's longest-running primetime drama series. The series, which is credited with introducing American audiences to high quality British drama, has presented hundreds of acclaimed British productions. Many of these are produced by the BBC, but the line-up also include programs shown on the commercial ITV network and Channel 4.

Overview

Masterpiece Theatre is best known for presenting adaptations of famous novels and biographies, but it also shows original television dramas. The first title to air was The First Churchills, starring Susan Hampshire as Sarah Churchill. Other programs presented on the series include Elizabeth R; House of Cards; I, Claudius; Jeeves and Wooster; The Jewel in the Crown; The Six Wives of Henry VIII; Traffik; Upstairs, Downstairs; More recent popular titles include Prime Suspect, The Forsyte Saga, and Bleak House.

The theme music played during the opening credits is the Rondeau from "Symphonies and Fanfares for the King's Supper" by French composer Jean-Joseph Mouret performed by Collegium Musicum de Paris, Roland Douatt, conducting (recorded in 1954). One of the most highly recognized themes in television history, the music has served as the bridal processional for countless fans.

In 1979, Masterpiece Theatre gained a sister series, Mystery!, featuring a mix of contemporary and classic British detective and crime series such as The Inspector Lynley Mysteries; Agatha Christie's Miss Marple; and Touching Evil. In 2000, to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the show, it presented Masterpiece Theatre: The American Collection, nine works by American writers, including Thornton Wilder's Our Town, starring Paul Newman.

Scheduling

Masterpiece Theatre airs Sunday nights at 9pm on PBS from October through May. In the summer, Mystery! airs in the same timeslot.

Awards

One of television's most honored series, the various shows aired on Masterpiece Theatre have garnered 33 Primetime Emmys, seven International Emmys, 15 Peabodys, and two Academy Award nominations

Hosts and Producers

Masterpiece Theatre was hosted by British/American broadcaster/journalist Alistair Cooke until 1992; Pulitzer Prize-winning author Russell Baker hosted from 1992 to 2004. Since 2004 it has been broadcast without a host.

The original series producer was Christopher Sarson. He was suceeded in 1973 by Joan Wilson. The current series producer, Rebecca Eaton, took over in 1985.[1]

Funders

From its 1971 premiere, the series was underwritten by Mobil (which later became Exxon Mobil). After an unprecedented 25 years of support, the series added the funder's name to its title. ExxonMobil ended its sponsorship in 2004, and the series remains without a corporate sponsor. The show is currently funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and by contributions to various PBS station from, as PBS puts it, "Viewers Like You".

The Best of Masterpiece Theatre

In March 2007, PBS aired an entertainmenet special produced and directed by Darcy Corcoran. “The Best of Masterpiece Theatre” was hosted by Derek Jacobi and featured interviews with Helen Mirren, Hugh Laurie, Damian Lewis, Robson Green, Ian Richardson, Gillian Andersen, Charles Dance, Alex Kingston and Jean Marsh. The countdown special was based on more than 20,000 survey responses posted to the Masterpiece Theatre & PBS affiliate web sites, the top 12 series were:

Parodies

Enlarge picture
Cookie Monster, in his Alistair Cookie guise in Monsterpiece Theater.
  • A series of movie, theatre, and television show parodies were shown on Sesame Street as "Monsterpiece Theater", hosted by Alistair Cookie (an alter ego of Cookie Monster) in reference to Alistair Cooke.
  • On Saturday Night Live, Dan Aykroyd, playing the high-bred but low-brow Leonard Pinth-Garnell, hosted "Bad Theatre," in which horrible, pseudo-intellectual skits were presented.
  • Pirate TV did a parody called "Rastapiece Theater".
  • MADtv did a parody called "Master P's Theater".
  • Disney Channel had a show titled "Mousterpiece Theater" hosted by George Plimpton featuring classic Disney cartoons.
  • On In Living Color during Season 5 a sketch called "Parody of Masterpiece Theatre" aired in which Jamie Foxx and David Alan Grier recited the lyrics of popular gangster rap songs of the early 1990's by artist such as Dr. Dre and Ice Cube. Cast member Marc Wilmore was the host imitating James Earl Jones
  • Yakko Warner played a Cooke-esque host in "Disasterpiece Theater", a cold opening leading into an Animaniacs episode, in which a wrecking ball obliterates a library set.
  • The Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode "Storyteller" opened with the character of Andrew Wells introducing the episode in the style of Masterpiece Theatre.
  • In the film Heartburn (1986), Rachel (played by Meryl Streep), at two points in the story, is watching a Masterpiece Theatre style program, wherein she imagines that the Alistair Cooke-esque host (played by John Wood) is narrating the story of her own life.
  • Tracey Ullman's early television special Tracey Ullman: A Class Act (1992) starts out with the famous opening fanfare from the series and a set made up to look like Masterpiece Theatre's with Tracey Ullman "standing in for Alistair Cooke."
  • The popular sitcom My Name Is Earl had an alternative reality themed episode called "Bad Karma" in which Jason Lee (Earl) introduces the episode in a set made to look like that of Masterpiece Theatre. While there Lee shows the viewers that he really is on a set and not in a real room.
  • In the television series Arthur which is seen on the same channel, in the episode "Phony Fern", Fern and Muffy claim to have the theme of Masterpiece Theater, in another episode, Kate declares "Welcome to Mashed Peas Theater!"
  • In the Taz-Mania episode "Dr. Wendel and Mr. Taz", Mr. Thickley introduces the story as part of his series, Taz-Manian Theater.

References

1. ^ [1]
  • Masterpiece Theatre: A Celebration of 25 Years of Outstanding Television by Terrence O'Flaherty (1996), ISBN 0-912333-74-X
  • Masterpiece Theatre and the Politics of Quality by Laurence Jarvik (1999) ISBN 0-8108-3204-6

External links

Alistair Cooke KBE (November 20, 1908 – March 30, 2004) was a British-American journalist and broadcaster.

Born in England, he became a naturalized American citizen, and lived in New York City with his family for most of his adult life.
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Russell Wayne Baker (born August 14, 1925) is an American Pulitzer Prize-winning writer known for his satirical commentary and self-critical prose. He is known for his autobiography, Growing Up.

Early years

Baker was born in Morrisonville, Virginia.
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Jean-Joseph Mouret (April 11, 1682, Avignon - December 22, 1738, Charenton-le-Pont) was a French composer whose dramatic works made him one of the leading exponents of Baroque music in his country.
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Motto
"In God We Trust"   (since 1956)
"E Pluribus Unum"   ("From Many, One"; Latin, traditional)
Anthem
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Public Broadcasting Service (PBS)

Type Broadcast television network
Country  United States
Availability     United States and parts of  Canada
Founded 1969
Launch date October 5, 1970
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January 10 is the 1st day of the year (2nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 0 days remaining.

Events

  • 49 BC - Julius Caesar crosses the Rubicon, signaling the start of civil war.

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19th century - 20th century - 21st century
1940s  1950s  1960s  - 1970s -  1980s  1990s  2000s
1968 1969 1970 - 1971 - 1972 1973 1974

Year 1971 (MCMLXXI
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An anthology series is a radio or television series that has a different story and a different set of characters in every episode. Typically, the only constant is the host, who introduces and concludes each program.
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original research or unverifiable claims.
* It needs additional references or sources for verification.

Please help [ improve the article] or discuss these issues on the talk page.
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Public Broadcasting Service (PBS)

Type Broadcast television network
Country  United States
Availability     United States and parts of  Canada
Founded 1969
Launch date October 5, 1970
..... Click the link for more information.
January 10 is the 1st day of the year (2nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 0 days remaining.

Events

  • 49 BC - Julius Caesar crosses the Rubicon, signaling the start of civil war.

..... Click the link for more information.
19th century - 20th century - 21st century
1940s  1950s  1960s  - 1970s -  1980s  1990s  2000s
1968 1969 1970 - 1971 - 1972 1973 1974

Year 1971 (MCMLXXI
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Motto
"In God We Trust"   (since 1956)
"E Pluribus Unum"   ("From Many, One"; Latin, traditional)
Anthem
..... Click the link for more information.
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)

Type Broadcast radio and television
Country  United Kingdom
Availability    National
International 
Founder John Reith
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Availability
Terrestrial
Analogue Normally tuned to 3
Freeview Channel 3
Satellite
Sky Digital Channel 103
SES Astra Channel 13
Cable
Virgin Media Channel 103
Tiscali TV Channel 3
UPC Ireland Channel 100 (UTV)
Online Watching
itv.
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Availability
Terrestrial
Analogue Normally tuned to 4 (excluding Wales)
Freeview Channel 4
Channel 8 (Wales)
Channel 13 (+1)
Satellite
Sky Digital Channel 104
Channel 117 (Wales)
Channel 135 (+1)
Channel 135, 136 +1 (ROI)
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An adaptation is a positive characteristic of an organism that has been favored by natural selection.[1] The concept is central to biology, particularly in evolutionary biology.
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novel (from, Italian novella, Spanish novela, French nouvelle for "new", "news", or "short story of something new") is today a long prose narrative set out in writing.
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Biography (from the Greek words bios meaning "life", and graphein meaning "write") is a genre of literature and other forms of media such as film, based on the written accounts of individual lives.
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The First Churchills was a BBC miniseries from 1969 about the life of John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough and his wife, Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough. It starred John Neville as the duke and Susan Hampshire as the duchess and was directed by David Giles.
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Susan Hampshire

Born May 12 1937 (1937--) (age 70)
London, England

Spouse(s) Eddie Kulukundis (1981-present) Pierre Granier-Deferre (1967-1974)


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Sarah Churchill (née Jenyns, spelt Jennings in most modern references[2]), Duchess of Marlborough (5 June 1660 (old style) – 18 October 1744) rose to be one of the most influential women in British history, as a result of her close friendship
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Elizabeth R is a BBC television drama serial that was broadcast in six, 85 minute parts on terrestrial channel BBC Two from February to March 1971. Starring Glenda Jackson in the title role, it was a largely accurate, historical portrayal of the life of Elizabeth I of
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house of cards (also known as a card tower) is a pastime involving the stacking of playing cards on top of each other in order to form a structure. The structures created using this method rely on nothing more than balance and friction in order to stay upright.
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I, Claudius was a 1976 BBC Television adaptation of Robert Graves's I, Claudius and Claudius the God. Written by Jack Pulman, it proved one of the corporation's most successful drama serials of all time.
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Jeeves and Wooster is a humorous television series adapted by Clive Exton from P.G. Wodehouse's Jeeves stories, and produced by Carnival Films for Granada Television, and screened on the United Kingdom's ITV network from 1990 to 1993.
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The Jewel in the Crown (1984) is a British television serial about the final days of the British Raj in India during World War II, based upon the Raj Quartet novels by Paul Scott. Granada Television produced it for the ITV network.
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The Six Wives of Henry VIII was a series of six teleplays produced by the BBC and first transmitted between 1 January and 5 February 1970. One of the first major British television series to be videotaped in colour, it was a huge success, propelling its previously
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Traffik is a 1989 television serial about illegal drug trade. Its three stories are interwoven, with arcs told from the perspectives of Pakistani growers and manufacturers, German dealers, and British users.
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Upstairs, Downstairs was a BAFTA and Emmy award-winning British drama set in a large townhouse in Edwardian London that depicted the lives of the servants "downstairs" and their masters "upstairs". It ran on ITV for five series from 1971 to 1975.
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