Siamese Dream

Siamese Dream is the second album by the American alternative rock band The Smashing Pumpkins, released on July 27, 1993 on Virgin Records. The album fused diverse influences such as grunge, shoegazing,dream pop,heavy metal, and progressive rock.

Despite recording sessions fraught with difficulties and tensions, Siamese Dream debuted at number ten on the Billboard charts, and eventually sold over four million copies in the U.S., and over six million worldwide, cementing The Smashing Pumpkins as an important group in alternative rock music. Four singles were released in support of Siamese Dream: "Cherub Rock", "Today", "Disarm", and "Rocket". In addition to receiving mostly positive reviews upon its release, Siamese Dream has widely been regarded as one of the best albums of the 1990s, and one of the best albums of all time. In 2003, Rolling Stone magazine ranked it number 362 on their 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list.

Background

The band's debut album, Gish, was released on Caroline Records in 1991 to unexpected success and acclaim. After the release of Nirvana's Nevermind later that year, The Smashing Pumpkins were hyped as "the next Nirvana". The band was signed to Caroline Records parent Virgin Records and began recording a follow-up album. Frontman Billy Corgan felt "this great pressure to make the next album set the world on fire". The immense pressure to succeed intensified an already problematic situation: drummer Jimmy Chamberlin was undergoing an increasingly severe addiction to heroin, guitarist James Iha and bassist D'arcy Wretzky had recently ended their romantic relationship and Corgan, aside from battles with weight gain and suicidal depression, was suffering from his worst-ever bout of writer's block.

The Muppets (TV series)

The Muppets (stylized as the muppets.) is an American television comedy series that premiered on September 22, 2015 on ABC. Co-created by Bill Prady and Bob Kushell, the series is produced by ABC Studios and The Muppets Studio, with Randall Einhorn and Muppet performer Bill Barretta serving as executive producers alongside Prady and Kushell.

The series is set in Los Angeles and depicts the everyday personal and professional lives of The Muppets during production of Up Late with Miss Piggy; a fictional late-night talk show starring Miss Piggy and airing on ABC after Jimmy Kimmel Live!.The Muppets serves as a parody of other mockumentary-style series, such as Modern Family, Parks and Recreation and The Office, by employing the same single-camera setup filming style with the implication of a documentary crew filming everyone. The series stars Muppet performers Steve Whitmire, Eric Jacobson, Dave Goelz, Bill Barretta, David Rudman, Matt Vogel, and Peter Linz in multiple roles.

Muppets Most Wanted

Muppets Most Wanted is a 2014 American musical comedy film produced by Walt Disney Pictures and Mandeville Films, and the eighth theatrical film featuring the Muppets. Directed by James Bobin and written by Bobin and Nicholas Stoller, the film is a sequel to 2011's The Muppets and stars Ricky Gervais, Ty Burrell, and Tina Fey as well as Muppet performers Steve Whitmire, Eric Jacobson, Dave Goelz, Bill Barretta, David Rudman, Matt Vogel, and Peter Linz. In the film, the Muppets find themselves unwittingly involved in an international crime caper while on tour in Europe.

Aside from co-writer Jason Segel, the majority of the production team behind The Muppets returned for Muppets Most Wanted including Bobin, Stoller, producers David Hoberman and Todd Lieberman, music supervisor and songwriter Bret McKenzie, and composer Christophe Beck.Principal photography commenced in January 2013 at Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire, England.

Muppets Most Wanted had its world premiere at the El Capitan Theatre in Los Angeles on March 11, 2014 and was released theatrically in North America on March 21, 2014. The film grossed $80.4 million worldwide.

The Muppets

The Muppets are a group of puppet characters known for an absurdist, burlesque and self-referential style of variety-sketch comedy. Having been created in 1955 by Jim Henson, they are the namesake for the Disney media franchise that encompasses films, television series, music recordings, print publications, and other media associated with The Muppet Show characters.

Henson once stated that the term "Muppet" had been created as a blend of the words "marionette" and "puppet", but also claimed that it was actually a word he had coined. The Muppets debuted on the television program Sam and Friends, which aired locally on WRC-TV in Washington, D.C. from 1955 to 1961. After appearing on skits in several late night talk shows and advertising commercials during the 1960s, Henson's Muppets began appearing on Sesame Street when that show debuted in 1969. The Muppets then became the stars of multiple television series and films, including; The Muppet Show (1976–1981), The Muppet Movie (1979), The Great Muppet Caper (1981), The Muppets Take Manhattan (1984), and The Jim Henson Hour (1989). After Henson's death in 1990, The Muppets continued their presence in television and cinema with Muppets Tonight (1996–98), a series continuation of The Muppet Show, and three films, The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992), Muppet Treasure Island (1996), Muppets from Space (1999); the former two were co-produced with Disney, who sought to acquire the characters since the late 1980s. In 2004, Disney purchased the rights to the Muppets (except for the Sesame Street characters, which were sold separately to Sesame Workshop, as well as Fraggle Rock and other characters retained by The Jim Henson Company), and later formed The Muppets Studio; a division created specifically for managing The Muppets franchise.