This Is Us

This Is Us may refer to:

The Joker Is Wild (album)

The Joker is Wild was the second album released by Alex Harvey after the demise of The Soul Band. The album was released in 1972. Some time after 1972 the album The Joker Is Wild was reissued and repackaged, the album song listings stayed the same, but the album was credited as being made by "The Sensational Alex Harvey Band" even though this band did not exist at the time, and the title was changed to This Is.

Background

The album was recorded at Regent Sound Studio, London in early 1972. These songs are unfinished demos only, recorded for a Spanish singer named Tony Caldeira (who wrote "The Joker Is Wild" and "Silhouette and Shadow"). Alex was teaching Tony vocal delivery and phrasing. Alex received a cheque for the session which subsequently bounced. The producer, Paul Murphy, sold the tapes to Metronome Records in Germany and they issued the LP as The Joker Is Wild in 1972. This Is SAHB is a low budget reissue of "Joker" intended to cash in on SAHB's success (even though Zal, Chris, Ted and Hugh weren't involved with the recordings). The photo of SAHB on the sleeve features keyboard player John Martin on the far left.

Adam McKay

Adam McKay (born April 17, 1968) is an American film director, producer, screenwriter, comedian, and actor. McKay served as head writer for the NBC sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live for two seasons. He directed Anchorman, Talladega Nights, and Step Brothers. McKay has a comedy partnership with Will Ferrell, with whom he co-wrote these films.

McKay and Ferrell produced their comedy website Funny or Die through their company Gary Sanchez Productions.

The Big Short—the first film he directed without Will Ferrell as the lead—was released in December 2015. Venturing here into more dramatic territory, McKay has been nominated for several awards including the Academy Award for Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay and two BAFTA awards, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay, which he won with Charles Randolph.

Personal life

McKay was born in 1968 in Denver, Colorado, to a cocktail waitress mother and a bassist father. He was raised in Pennsylvania. He graduated from Great Valley High School in Malvern, Pennsylvania, and attended Penn State and Temple University. McKay dropped out from the university a semester-and-a-half before he was set to earn his bachelor’s. He described it as, "settling with an imaginary degree”.

Will Ferrell

John William "Will" Ferrell (/ˈfɛrəl/; born July 16, 1967) is an American actor, comedian, producer, and writer. He first established himself in the mid-1990s as a cast member on the NBC sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live, and has subsequently starred in comedy films such as Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004), Talladega Nights (2006), Step Brothers (2008), The Other Guys (2010) and Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues (2013), all but one of which he co-wrote with his comedy partner Adam McKay. The two also founded the comedy website Funny or Die in 2007. Other films roles include Elf, Old School (both 2003), Blades of Glory (2007), and the animated films Megamind (2010) and The Lego Movie (2014).

Ferrell is considered a member of the "Frat Pack", a generation of leading Hollywood comic actors who emerged in the late 1990s and the 2000s, including Jack Black, Ben Stiller, Steve Carell, Vince Vaughn, and brothers Owen and Luke Wilson. He received an Emmy Award nomination for his work on Saturday Night Live, and two Golden Globe Award nominations for The Producers (2005) and Stranger than Fiction (2006). He was also named the best comedian of 2015 in the British GQ Men of the Year awards. Ferrell received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on March 26, 2015.

The Other

The Other is a 1972 psychological thriller film directed by Robert Mulligan, adapted for film by Tom Tryon from his novel of the same name. It stars Uta Hagen, Diana Muldaur, and Chris and Martin Udvarnoky.

Plot

It's a seemingly idyllic summer in 1935, and identical twins Niles and Holland Perry play around the bucolic family farm. Holland is an amoral mischief maker, though sympathetic Niles is often caught in their shenanigans. Niles carries a Prince Albert tobacco tin with him containing several secret trinkets, including something mysteriously wrapped in blue wax paper, and the Perry family ring, which had been handed down from their grandfather, through their father, to Holland, the older twin. Niles asks Holland to confirm that the ring is now indeed his. "Cripes yes, I gave it to you," is the response. Niles asks Holland to take the ring and the wrapped object back, but Holland insists "I gave them to you, they're yours now." Their obnoxious cousin Russell, whom the boys call "Piggy Lookadoo" behind his back, finds them in the apple cellar below the barn—a place they are not supposed to play—and happens to see the contents of the tobacco tin, including the ring. Russell cryptically states that the ring was supposed to be buried, and promises to "tell on" Niles to his father, Niles' Uncle George. Uncle George padlocks the door to the apple cellar to keep the kids from playing there, but there is another stairway inside the barn, giving them access to the cellar.