The Lonely Island
The Lonely Island at Comic-Con
Background information
Origin	Berkeley, California
Genres	Comedy hip hop
Years active	2001–PRESENT
Labels	Universal Republic
Website	thelonelyisland.com
Members
Andy Samberg Akiva Schaffer Jorma Taccone

The Lonely Island is an American comedy troupe composed of Akiva "Kiv" Schaffer, Jorma "Jorm" Taccone, and David Andrew "Andy" Samberg, best known for their comedic music. Originally from Berkeley, California, the group is currently based in New York City. The group broke out due to their collective work from 2005–2011 on Saturday Night Live. Samberg and Schaffer continue to work at the show, with occasional input from Taccone.^[1]

Once on the show, they wrote "Lazy Sunday", a music parody video that became an instant hit on YouTube.^[2] In August 2007, the group premiered its first feature film, Hot Rod.^[3] Following the success of "Lazy Sunday", the group produced the Emmy-winning "Dick in a Box", "Jizz in My Pants", "Like a Boss", and the Grammy-nominated "I'm on a Boat",^[4] which have subsequently had huge success both on SNL and on the internet, and prompted the release of the 2009 album, Incredibad.^[5] In 2011, the group released their second album, Turtleneck & Chain, which featured songs from such SNL digital shorts as "I Just Had Sex" featuring Akon , "The Creep", and "Jack Sparrow". The music video of "I Just Had Sex" featuring Akon, received a very large number of hits on YouTube, over 170 million hits.

[edit] Saturday Night Live

Beginning in junior high school, Samberg, Schaffer, and Taccone began creating live comedy skits that expanded to comedic shorts, music parody (both songs and videos), and one full-length television pilot, before being invited to write portions of the 2005 MTV Movie Awards, which Jimmy Fallon hosted.^[2] Impressed with the group's material, he brought the trio to the attention of Lorne Michaels, the producer of Saturday Night Live, who agreed to see them. Performing stand-up comedy in his free time, Samberg fulfilled a lifelong dream by auditioning for the show. He was called back for a second audition a few weeks later and was ultimately invited to be a cast member; Schaffer and Taccone were invited to join the writing staff based on their work in the trio.^[2] Since their arrival, the group has written some popular bits in recent SNL history, most notably, the SNL Digital Shorts (collectively) and MacGruber (Taccone, with John Solomon and cast member Will Forte).

Uncertain if Michaels would approve of a wacky pre-recorded skit on the show, the group borrowed a video camera and filmed a faux lettuce commercial starring Samberg and fellow SNL cast member Will Forte. They presented the finished product to Michaels in December 2005, who liked the short and agreed to air it.^[2] It was the first of what would become a regular feature of the program, called Saturday Night Live's Digital Shorts.^[2] "Lazy Sunday", the second digital short, enjoyed runaway success in the virtual media, as fans responded with t-shirts and response videos.^[2] Many of these shorts have skyrocketed to internet fame, including "Natalie's Rap" (with Natalie Portman), "Iran So Far" (with Adam Levine), "Jizz in My Pants", "Shy Ronnie" (with Rihanna), and "I'm on a Boat" (with T-Pain), the latter of which was nominated on December 2, 2009, for Best Rap/Sung Collaboration at the 52nd Grammy Awards.^[4]

The song "Dick in a Box", which was performed with Justin Timberlake, won the 2007 Creative Arts Emmy Award for Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics.^[7] Credited for its production are Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer, Jorma Taccone, and Justin Timberlake, in addition to Katreese Barnes and Asa Taccone for music.^[8] Based on 1990s contemporary R&B, such as Keith Sweat, Jodeci, and R. Kelly, the song is about giving gift-wrapped genitalia as a Christmas present to one's girlfriend.^[9] Samberg and Timberlake made a sequel to "Dick in a Box" called "Motherlover", which aired on May 9, 2009.

Other recent shorts by the comedy group include "On the Ground" which aired October 2009; "Great Day" aired on May 15, 2010; "Shy Ronnie 2: Ronnie & Clyde" featuring Rihanna aired on October 30, 2010; "I Just Had Sex" featuring Akon, was aired on December 18, 2010; "The Creep" featuring Nicki Minaj and John Waters was released on January 29, 2011; and "Jack Sparrow" featuring Michael Bolton, which was released on May 7, 2011. The sequel to Motherlover, "3-Way (The Golden Rule)," featured Lady Gaga and aired on May 21, 2011.

In the summer of 2010, Taccone quit Saturday Night Live, but has returned to work on a handful of Digital Shorts in the 2010–2011 season.^[1]

In 2012, some digital shorts that may appear on a future album came out, including the 100th digital short and "Lazy Sunday 2."

Musical style[link]

The comedic influences of the group include SNL forebears such as Adam Sandler, Chris Farley and Mike Myers, as well as luminaries such as Steve Martin, Mel Brooks, the Monty Python troupe and the Marx Brothers.^[10] While the group is most strongly inspired by hip-hop and R&B, the lyrics are commonly rooted in self-deprecation as is reflected in a 2011 interview conducted shortly before the release of Turtleneck and Chain.^[11] The Lonely Island's debut Incredibad was produced with the goal in mind to make an impact on listeners just as They're All Gonna Laugh At You (1993), a musical comedy album by Adam Sandler, which heavily influenced Samberg.^[12] Songs by The Lonely Island rarely exceed three minutes, as brevity is very important to the troupe, who believe that is "about as much as the audience can stand."^[13]

Discography[link]

Incredibad[link]

"The Lonely Island" called themselves "Incredibad" before they started selling songs on iTunes. They have sixteen songs as demos available on their website, and they made another humorous song under the name "The Party Andersons" called "Cocaine."

[edit] Incredibad

The group's first album, Incredibad, was released on February 10, 2009 by Universal Republic Records.^[5][14] The album, which includes parodies of existing hip hop songs, also includes a DVD with some of the videos, including "Wait (You Guys)" as the Bing Bong Brothers, a spoof of the Ying Yang Twins' "Wait (The Whisper Song)", and "Jizz in my Pants".

[edit] Turtleneck & Chain

On their YouTube channel, The Lonely Island announced an upcoming album on October 28, 2010, which would be released in Spring 2011. On December 18, 2010, the SNL Digital Short was the official music video of "I Just Had Sex" (featuring Akon), the first single off the album.

On January 29, 2011, the group debuted "The Creep" featuring Nicki Minaj and a cameo by filmmaker John Waters, on SNL and YouTube. On March 15, 2011, Direct Current Music reported that the album would be named Turtleneck & Chain and would be released on May 10, 2011.^[15] On April 1, 2011, The Lonely Island appeared as guests on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, where they premiered the lead track, "We're Back!", as well as the new album cover. On April 19, 2011, the group released "Motherlover" featuring Justin Timberlake as the fourth single from the album. This song was last featured on the 34th season of SNL.

The group held a fundraiser to promote their new album on April 16, 2011. This event was at Amoeba Music in Berkeley, California. There were only 250 tickets available, and the only way to obtain a ticket was to pre-order their album. They hosted a Q & A session and an autograph session. Shortly after, "Motherlover" was released on iTunes. On May 7, they released a new track, "Jack Sparrow", featuring Michael Bolton.

Turtleneck & Chain is both Emmy and Grammy nominated (for Best Comedy Album).

Collaborations[link]

The Lonely Island has collaborated with many major artists including T-Pain in "I'm on a Boat", Akon in "I Just Had Sex", Justin Timberlake in "Dick in a Box", "Motherlover" and "3-Way (The Golden Rule)" (the last of which also featured Lady Gaga), Beck in "Attracted to Us", Rihanna in "Shy Ronnie" and "Shy Ronnie 2: Ronnie & Clyde", Michael Bolton in "Jack Sparrow", Nicki Minaj in "The Creep", Julian Casablancas in "Boombox", Jack Black in "Sax Man", Norah Jones in "Dreamgirl", Snoop Dogg in "Turtleneck and Chain", Will Ferrell in "Cool Guys Don't Look at Explosions", Santigold in "After Party", Natalie Portman in "Natalie's Rap", E-40 in "Santana DVX" and Seth Rogen in "Like a Boss".

Filmography[link]

[edit] Hot Rod

Upon landing a role as a featured player on SNL, Samberg had multiple meetings with production companies, Paramount being one of them. They told him he was being considered for the leading man in a project written by Pam Brady which had remained dormant for some years. The script was under the care of the producer Lorne Michaels, who had the final say. Paramount gave Samberg the script; he agreed and waited for Michaels' approval. After the success of "Lazy Sunday", he felt he was ready to play the lead role in the movie. It was called Hot Rod and was originally written with Will Ferrell in mind as the lead.^[6] Schaffer and Taccone were brought on as well once again due to the "Lazy Sunday Effect." Released in August 2007, the film did very poorly at the box office, released the same time as the blockbuster The Bourne Ultimatum, and barely broke even. Additionally, it received mixed or average reviews,^[16] a scenario Samberg anticipated as he stated is the case with many first-time comedies that embrace surreal comedy, such as Billy Madison.^[6]

[edit] Awesometown

The crew filmed a pilot for Fox in 2005 for a TV show called Awesometown, however the network rejected it. They re-edited the pilot and added new segments for a potential MTV or Comedy Network version, but it was also rejected.^[17][18]

References[link]

External links[link]

	Book: The Lonely Island
Wikipedia books are collections of articles that can be downloaded or ordered in print.

• The Lonely Island official website
• The Lonely Island interview on UGO

Parry Gripp (born September 22, 1967)^[1] is a singer-songwriter as well as lead vocalist and guitarist for the pop punk band Nerf Herder.

As a songwriter, Gripp is best known for fake jingles, as in his 2005 solo album For Those About to Shop, We Salute You - a 51-track concept album mimicking various musical styles as product commercials. While it does not have one single concept, it goes through many various concept suites, such as trucks, beer, and insomnia. He also maintains a song-of-the-week website and a YouTube channel on which he creates soundtracks to internet memes^[2] as well as music videos for his own novelty songs, with titles including "Do You Like Waffles?", "Nom Nom Nom Nom Nom Nom Nom", "Last Train to Awesometown", "Spaghetti Cat (I weep for you)", "Hamster on a Piano (Eating Popcorn)", "I Am A Banana" and "Baby Monkey (Going Backwards On A Pig)". Gripp also performs the Super Hero Squad Show theme song.

Gripp also joined forces with MC Lars to perform some of the vocals, including the chorus, to 'Guitar Hero Hero (Beating Guitar Hero Doesn't Make You Slash)' a song commenting on the notion that video games like Guitar Hero take kids away from playing in bands and actually learning their instruments.

Along with faux jingles, Gripp also creates some real advertising music, such as Beatles-inspired tunes promoting the Wawa Food Markets' Breakfast Hoagiefest,^[3] and songs for the Hallmark Cards e-characters hoops&yoyo.

On July 9, 2009 Parry Gripp debuted a new song called "The Girl at the Video Game Store" for the 1000th episode of the G4 TV program Attack of the Show! The video features the show's hosts Olivia Munn as the titular character and Kevin Pereira on drums.^[4]

Aside from his music, Gripp is the co-owner (with his sister) of the Santa Barbara Orchid Estate, which was founded by his father.^[5][6]

Discography[link]

Albums[link]

• "For Those About to Shop, We Salute You" (2005)
• "One Donut a Day" (2007)
• "Do You Like Waffles" (2008)
• "Fuzzy Fuzzy Cute Cute: Volume 1" (2010)
• "This is My Ringtone" (2011)
• "Chip Rok Volume 1" (2011)
• "Fugly Volume 2" (forthcoming, expected release date 2012)

Artwork[link]

Nathan Mazur, a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania based cartoonist, provided the animation for some of Gripp's music videos: "Do You Like Waffles?", "Up Butt Coconut", and "Nom Nom Nom Nom Nom Nom Nom". He also creates the "album art" that accompanies Parry Gripp's song-of-the-week.

See also[link]

• Nerf Herder

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official website
• Gripp YouTube channel

George Jackson Churchward CBE (January 31, 1857 – December 19, 1933) was Chief Mechanical Engineer of the Great Western Railway (GWR) in the United Kingdom from 1902 to 1922.

Early career[link]

Churchward was born in Stoke Gabriel, Devon and was educated at Totnes Grammar School. He apprenticed in the Newton Abbot works of the South Devon Railway and under Joseph Armstrong in the GWR's Swindon Works. At Swindon he rose from draughtsman through several positions, including Carriage Works Manager, and in 1897 was appointed Chief Assistant to William Dean. After 5 years as Chief Assistant, he succeeded Dean as Locomotive Superintendent.^[1]

In 1900 he became the first mayor of Swindon.

Chief Mechanical Engineer[link]

In the 19th and early 20th century, railway companies were fiercely competitive. Speed meant revenue and speed was dependent on engineering. Churchward delivered to the GWR from Swindon a series of class-leading and innovative locomotives. Arguably, from the early 1900s to the 1920s the Great Western’s 2-cylinder and 4-cylinder 4-6-0 designs were substantially superior to any class of locomotive of the other British railway companies. On one occasion, the GWR's directors confronted Churchward, and demanded to know why the London and North Western Railway were able to build three 4-6-0 locomotives for the price of two of Churchward's "Stars". Churchward allegedly gave a terse response: "Because one of mine could pull two of their bloody things backwards!"^[2]

Churchward preferred locomotives without trailing wheels, to maximise adhesion on the South Devon banks of Dainton, Rattery and Hemerdon on the West of England mainline to Plymouth, then the Great Western’s most important route. Due to the weight and dimensional restrictions required to pass over all the GWR’s lines, he designed narrow fireboxes, but with good circulation. Combining high boiler pressures with superheating made efficient use of the high calorific-value steam coal from the mines in South Wales. Other refinements included feed-water distribution trays beneath the top-fitted clack boxes to minimize boiler stress and large bearing surfaces to reduce wear.

Churchward also made advancements in carriage design. He introduced the GWR's first steel-roofed coaches.

Churchward is credited^[3] with introducing to Britain several refinements from American and French steam locomotive practice. Among these were the tapered boiler and the casting of cylinders and saddles together, in halves. His choice of outside cylinders for express locomotives was also not standard in Britain for that time. Many elements of British practice were retained, of course. His locomotives for the most part used British plate frames, and the crew was accommodated in typical British fashion. The selection of a domeless boiler was more common to Britain than to the U.S.

In 1922 Churchward retired, and C. B. Collett inherited his legacy of excellent, standardised designs. These designs influenced British locomotive practice to the end of steam. Major classes built by the LMS and even British Railways 50 years later are clearly developments of Churchward's basic designs. The LMS Stanier Class 5 4-6-0 and the BR standard class 5 are both derived from his Saint class early examples of which date to 1902.^[4]

Churchward's name is used for Stoke Gabriel FC's home ground.

[edit] City of Truro

The first class of locomotives with which Churchward won success and worldwide recognition was the 4-4-0 'City' class, which soon became one of the most famous class locomotives in the world at the time. One of them, City of Truro, became the first engine in the world to haul a train at 100 miles per hour in 1904 (although unauthenticated). He went on to build the 'County' class and the 'Star' class.

Death[link]

Although Churchward had retired in 1922, he continued to live in a GWR-owned house near to the line at Swindon, and he retained his interest in the company’s affairs. He never married.^[5] On 19 December 1933, now with poor eyesight and hard of hearing, he was inspecting a defectively-bedded sleeper on the down, through line when he was struck and killed by a Paddington to Fishguard express, pulled by No. 4085 'Berkeley Castle'. The locomotive was of the GWR Castle class, a successful design by Charles Collett and greatly influenced by Churchward.

He is buried at Christ Church in Old Town, Swindon.

References[link]

Notes[link]

Sources[link]

• Allan, Ian (comp.) (March 1944). The ABC of Great Western Locomotives. London: McCorquodale and Co. 
• Daniel, John. (2000). G. J. Churchward. Great Western Archive retrieved 2007-10-10.
• Griffiths, Denis (1987). Locomotive Engineers of the GWR. Wellingborough: Patrick Stephens Ltd. ISBN 0-85059-819-2. 
• Haresnape, Brian; Swain, Alec (1976). Churchward Locomotives - A Pictorial History. London: Ian Allan. ISBN 0-7110-0697-0. 
• Herring, Peter (2002). Yesterday's Railways. UK: David & Charles. ISBN 0-7153-1387-8. 
• Hollingsworth, Brian; Cook, Arthur (2000). Steam Locomotives. London: Salamander Books, Greenwich Editions. ISBN 0-86288-346-6. 
• Nock, O. S. (1964). The Great Western Railway in the Twentieth Century. London: Ian Allan. 
• Rogers, H. C. B. (1975). G. J. Churchward - A Locomotive Biography. London: Allen & Unwin. ISBN 0-04-385069-3. 
• Tuplin, W. A. (1971). Great Western Saints and Sinners. London: Allen & Unwin. ISBN 0-04-385057-X. 
• Tuplin, W. A. (1958). Great Western Steam. London: Allen & Unwin.