This work offers a complete episode guide and comprehensive history of Second City Television. The influential Canadian sketch comedy series created dozens of memorable characters (i.e. station president Guy Caballero and showbiz mogul Johnny LaRue) and featured well-known performers such as John Candy, Catherine O'Hara, and Martin Short, at the height of their comedic careers. Presenting a thorough summary and review for each of SCTV's 135 episodes, the author traces the initial appearance and evolution of some of comedy's best known television characters and sketches. Two appendices provide guides to the program's compilation shows and recently released boxed sets on DVD.

The ultimate book for the millions of fans of "SCTV", the most innovative and consistently funny late-night comedy program on television, "SCTV: Behind the Scenes" features interviews with virtually every member of The Second City troupe--including John Candy, John Belushi, Dan Ackroyd, Dave Thomas, and Rick Moranis. 120 photos, 60 in color.

Whether lighting up the small screen, stealing scenes on the big screen or starring on the stage, Andrea Martin has long entertained Canadians with her hilarious characterizations and heartwarming performances. An important player in SCTV, the funniest show ever to come out of Canada, Martin helped change the face of television by introducing us to a host of characters, including the indomitable Edith Prickley. Martin has worked stages, sets and even trapezes across North America, playing to houses packed with adoring fans, all of whom instantly recognize the star who has entertained us for nearly forty years. In Lady Parts, for the first time, Martin opens up in a series of eclectic, human, always entertaining and often moving essays. She shares her fondest remembrances of a life in show business and reflects on motherhood, relationships, no relationships, family, chimps in tutus, squirrels, and why she always flies to Atlanta to get her hair cut. Lady Parts will make you smile and may make you cry—a powerful collection of stories by a woman with a truly storied life.

Bride and mother-of-the-bride rebel against today’s monster weddings and explain how weddings can be charming, affordable—and excruciatingly correct. Today’s brides are bombarded with wedding advice that promises perfection but urges achieving it through selfishness (“It’s your wedding, and you can do whatever you like”), greed (choosing the presents that guests are directed to buy), and showing off (“This is your chance to show everyone what you’re about”). Couples wishing to resist such pressure see elopement or a slapdash wedding as the only alternatives to a gaudy blowout. But none of these choices appealed to a bride who happened to have been brought up by Miss Manners. Judith Martin and her newlywed daughter, Jacobina, explain how to have a dignified ceremony and delightful celebration without succumbing to the now-prevalent pattern of the vulgar, money-draining wedding that exhausts families and exploits friends.

Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) surveillance remains a growing industry in response to increased security threats, and whilst new developments have brought clearer images, digital recording and high speed data transmission, effective security systems still rely upon proper specification and installation by engineers with an in depth knowledge of CCTV principles and technology.The third edition of Closed Circuit Television provides a thorough technical guide for all those involved in the design, specification, installation and maintenance of CCTV systems. Fully dual-standard for PAL and NTSC systems, the book covers the essential equipment and topics of relevance to practitioners, managers and students on vocational and industry training courses. Extended coverage of flat screen devices, digital recording, and a new chapter on networking principles, bring this popular guide up to date with the latest developments in the field.Joe Cieszynski is a well-known technical writer with a wealth of experience in the security industry. After many years of college lecturing on TV, video and security topics, he currently acts as City & Guilds' Chief Examiner for security systems and provides independent CCTV system consultancy.*Demystifies CCTV technology for installers and managers*Concise, accessible text ideal for hard-pressed practitioners and students*Fully dual-standard coverage for PAL and NTSC based systems

“A read so riveting, it's not hard to imagine watching it unfold on Sunday nights.” —The Associated Press The inside story of HBO, the start-up company that reinvented television—by two veteran media reporters HBO changed how stories could be told on TV. The Sopranos, Sex and the City, The Wire, Game of Thrones. The network’s meteoric rise heralded the second golden age of television with serialized shows that examined and reflected American anxieties, fears, and secret passions through complicated characters who were flawed and often unlikable. HBO’s own behind-the-scenes story is as complex, compelling, and innovative as the dramas the network created, driven by unorthodox executives who pushed the boundaries of what viewers understood as television at the turn of the century. Originally conceived by a small upstart group of entrepreneurs to bring Hollywood movies into living rooms across America, the scrappy network grew into one of the most influential and respected players in Hollywood. It’s Not TV is the deeply reported, definitive story of one of America’s most daring and popular cultural institutions, laying bare HBO’s growth, dominance, and vulnerability within the capricious media landscape over the past fifty years. Through the visionary executives, showrunners, and producers who shaped HBO, seasoned journalists Gillette and Koblin bring to life a dynamic cast of characters who drove the company’s creative innovation in astonishing ways—outmaneuvering copycat competitors, taming Hollywood studios, transforming 1980s comedians and athletes like Chris Rock and Mike Tyson into superstars, and in the late 1990s and 2000s elevating the commercial-free, serialized drama to a revered art form. But in the midst of all its success, HBO was also defined by misbehaving executives, internal power struggles, and a few crucial miscalculations. As data-driven models like Netflix have taken over streaming, HBO’s artful, instinctual, and humanistic approach to storytelling is in jeopardy. Taking readers into the boardrooms and behind the camera, It’s Not TV tells the surprising, fascinating story of HBO’s ascent, its groundbreaking influence on American business, technology, and popular culture, and its increasingly precarious position in the very market it created.

Slavery is back. America, 1962. Having lost a war, America finds itself under Nazi Germany and Japan occupation. A few Jews still live under assumed names. The 'I Ching' is prevalent in San Francisco. Science fiction meets serious ideas in this take on a possible alternate history.

Executives from The Second City—the world’s premier comedy theater and school of improvisation—reveal improvisational techniques that can help any organization develop innovators, encourage adaptable leaders, and build transformational businesses. For more than fifty years, The Second City comedy theater in Chicago has been a training ground for some of the best comic minds in the industry—including John Belushi, Bill Murray, Gilda Radner, Mike Myers, Steve Carell, Stephen Colbert, and Tina Fey. But it also provides one-of-a-kind leadership training to cutting-edge companies, nonprofits, and public sector organizations—all aimed at increasing creativity, collaboration, and teamwork. The rules for leadership and teamwork have changed, and the skills that got professionals ahead a generation ago don’t work anymore. Now The Second City provides a new toolkit individuals and organizations can use to thrive in a world increasingly shaped by speed, social communication, and decentralization. Based on eight principles of improvisation, Yes, And helps to develop these skills and foster them in high-potential leaders and their teams, including: Mastering the ability to co-create in an ensemble Fostering a “yes, and” approach to work Embracing failure to accelerate high performance Leading by listening and by learning to follow Innovating by making something out of nothing Yes, And is a must-read for professionals and organizations, helping to develop the invaluable leadership skills needed to succeed today.

Fresh from the Second City troupe in Toronto, Gilda Radner created such memorable characters as Emily Litella and Roseanne Roseannadanna as a member of the original cast of Saturday Night Live. The wife of Gene Wilder, Gilda was plagued by persistent health problems and two miscarriages, and was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 1986. Brave, funny, and painfully honest, the twentieth-anniversary edition of It's Always Something is the story of Gilda's journey while living with cancer and her determination to continue laughing. "Cancer," she said, "is about the most unfunny thing in the world." But Gilda's gutsy and unique sense of humor never left her as she describes two years of cancer treatment -- surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation treatment, as well as the high and low points of her own career. Told as only Gilda could tell it, and newly revised to include a resource guide for those living with cancer, It's Always Something is the inspiring story of a courageous, funny woman determined to enjoy life no matter the circumstances.

The New York Times #1 best-selling series. Includes 3 novels by Ransom Riggs and 12 peculiar photographs. Together for the first time, here is the #1 New York Times best seller Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children and its two sequels, Hollow City and Library of Souls. All three hardcovers are packaged in a beautifully designed slipcase. Also included: a special collector's envelope of twelve peculiar photographs, highlighting the most memorable moments of this extraordinary three-volume fantasy. MISS PEREGRINE'S HOME FOR PECULIAR CHILDREN: A mysterious island. An abandoned orphanage. A strange collection of very curious photographs. It all waits to be discovered in this groundbreaking novel, which mixes fiction and photography in a thrilling new kind of reading experience. As our story opens, a horrific family tragedy sets sixteen-year-old Jacob Portman journeying to a remote island off the coast of Wales, where he discovers the crumbling ruins of Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. HOLLOW CITY: September 3, 1940. Ten peculiar children flee an army of deadly monsters. And only one person can help them—but she's trapped in the body of a bird. The extraordinary adventure continues as Jacob Portman and his newfound friends journey to London, the peculiar capital of the world. There, they hope to find a cure for their beloved headmistress, Miss Peregrine. But in this war-torn city, hideous surprises lurk around every corner. LIBRARY OF SOULS: A boy, a girl, and a talking dog. They're all that stands between the sinister wights and the future of peculiar children everywhere. Jacob Portman ventures through history one last time to rescue the peculiar children from a heavily guarded fortress. He's joined by girlfriend and firestarter Emma Bloom, canine companion Addison MacHenry, and some very unexpected allies.