Dwayne Johnson

Dwayne Douglas Johnson (born May 2, 1972), also known by his ring name The Rock, is an American and Canadian actor, producer and semi-retired professional wrestler, signed with WWE. Johnson was a college football player for the University of Miami, winning a national championship on the 1991 Miami Hurricanes football team. He later played for the Calgary Stampeders in the Canadian Football League, and was cut two months into the 1995 season. This led him to become a professional wrestler like his grandfather, Peter Maivia, and his father, Rocky Johnson (from whom he also inherited his Canadian citizenship). Through Maivia he is considered a non-blood relative of the Anoa'i wrestling family.

Originally billed as "Rocky Maivia", he gained mainstream fame in the World Wrestling Federation (WWF/E) from 1996 to 2004 as a major figure in the company's Attitude Era, and was the first third-generation wrestler in the company's history. He returned to wrestling part-time for WWE from 2011 to 2013 and continues to make sporadic non-wrestling appearances for the company. The Rock has had seventeen championship reigns in WWE, including ten as a world champion, winning the WWF/E Championship eight times and the WCW/World Championship twice. WWE.com described him as a 10-time WWE World Heavyweight Champion. He won the Intercontinental Championship twice and the WWF Tag Team Championship five times. He is the sixth Triple Crown Champion in WWE history, and won the 2000 Royal Rumble. The Rock was instrumental in helping the organization win the ratings war against the World Championship Wrestling (WCW).

Dwayne

Dwayne is a traditionally male name. It is Gaelic in origin and comes from the name Dubhan.

History

St. Dubhán was a Welsh monk who established an abbey in Hook Head, Ireland during the 5th century. As a surname it is O'Dubhain, or Dubhan. Dubhain was a popular given name in 16th century southern Ireland. Anglicized form is Dwane or Duane. In Gaelic "dubh" means "little dark one".

Variant forms

Given name

The Tonight Show

The Tonight Show is an American late-night talk show broadcast from the Rockefeller Center in New York City and airing on NBC since 1954. It is the world's longest-running talk show, and the longest running, regularly scheduled entertainment program in the United States. It is the third-longest-running show on NBC, after only the news-and-talk shows Today and Meet the Press.

Over the course of more than 60 years, The Tonight Show has undergone only minor title changes. It aired under the name Tonight for several of its early years, eventually settling on The Tonight Show after the seating of long-time host Johnny Carson in 1962. In later decades, network programmers, advertisers, and the show's announcers would refer to the show by including the name of the host; for example, it is currently announced as The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. In 1957, the show briefly tried a more news-style format. It has otherwise remained a talk show throughout its run.

The Tonight Show began broadcasting in 1954. It has had six official hosts, beginning with Steve Allen (1954–57), followed by Jack Paar (1957–62), Johnny Carson (1962–92), Jay Leno (1992–2009, 2010–14), Conan O'Brien (2009–10), and Jimmy Fallon (2014–present). It has had several recurring guest hosts, a practice especially common during the Paar and Carson eras.

Jumanji

Jumanji is a 1995 American fantasy comedy film directed by Joe Johnston. It is an adaptation of the 1981 children's book of the same name by Chris Van Allsburg. The film was written by Greg Taylor, Jonathan Hensleigh, and Jim Strain, and stars Robin Williams, Kirsten Dunst, David Alan Grier, Bonnie Hunt, Jonathan Hyde, and Bebe Neuwirth. The special effects were provided by Industrial Light & Magic for computer graphic elements and Amalgamated Dynamics for animatronics components.

The story centers on 12-year-old Alan Parrish, who becomes trapped in a board game while playing with his best friend Sarah Whittle in 1969. Twenty-six years later, siblings Judy and Peter Shepherd find the game and begin playing and then unwittingly release the now-adult Alan. After tracking down Sarah, the quartet resolve to finish the game in order to reverse all of the destruction it has caused.

The film was shot in Keene, New Hampshire, though the story is set in the fictional town of Brantford. Additional filming took place in Vancouver, British Columbia. The film was released on December 15, 1995. Despite its lukewarm critical reception, it was a box office success, earning $262,797,249 worldwide on a budget of approximately $65 million and was the 10th highest-grossing movie of 1995.

Welcome to the Jungle

Welcome to the Jungle is a song by the American rock band Guns N' Roses, featured on their debut studio album, Appetite for Destruction (1987). It was released as the album's second single initially in the UK in September 1987 then again in October 1988 this time including the US, where it reached number seven on the Billboard Hot 100 and number 24 on the UK Singles Chart.

On the 1987 release, the Maxi Single format was backed with a live versions of AC/DC's Whole Lotta Rosie, the bands debut single It's So Easy and Bob Dylan's Knockin' On Heaven's Door. In 2009 "Welcome to the Jungle" was named the greatest hard rock song of all time by VH1.

Background and composition

Axl Rose wrote the words while visiting a friend in Seattle. "It's a big city, but at the same time, it's still a small city compared to L.A. and the things that you're gonna learn. It seemed a lot more rural up there. I just wrote how it looked to me. If someone comes to town and they want to find something, they can find whatever they want." Rhythm guitarist Izzy Stradlin summarises the song as "about Hollywood streets; true to life."