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127-483: The Red Green Show is a half-hour Canadian television comedy program that aired on various channels in Canada from April 4, 1991 until April 7, 2006. During its fifteen seasons, it had six network homes, but its longest run was with its final network, CBC Television . It is a cross between a sitcom and a sketch comedy and based on various outdoor shows and ' Do It Yourself ' television series. On U.S. broadcast stations,

254-620: A 'possum (due to Red's being the Possum Lodge leader) and beaver (as a sarcastic reference to Harold's "toothy" overbite), respectively. Dalton and Mike also appear in one short, depicted as a bear and a raccoon, respectively. The cartoons' subjects have included finding money at the end of a rainbow, planting a cell phone to grow a telephone pole, and waging a fire-fight against the Sun and its deadly ultraviolet rays. The cartoons were actually written by staff writers, starting with Shaun Graham, who wrote

381-409: A running gag in the "Adventures with Bill" segments, most often by having one or both side-view mirrors knocked off. After the series ended, the van was scrapped. Red's dry, often sarcastic wit is balanced by a strong sense of camaraderie with his fellow lodge members, partly because he directs most of his sarcasm toward Harold. Despite this, Harold and the rest of Possum Lodge seem to regard Red with

508-411: A Red Green Channel on Roku televisions, and all 300 episodes are available on YouTube. The title character of The Red Green Show , Red ( Steve Smith ) is the leader of Possum Lodge and a self-proclaimed handyman who is constantly extolling the virtues of duct tape ("the handyman's secret weapon"). He and his wife Bernice have no children, and have been married for 25 years as of the series premiere. He

635-432: A bank soon afterward. In repayment, Red employed his nephew Harold as the producer and director of The Red Green Show . In addition to being a handyman, Red also has several main philosophies in life, some of which are passed on to the lodge as a whole. Chief among them is the phrase "Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati" (pseudo-Latin for "When all else fails, play dead"). He also concludes each of his Handyman Corner segments with

762-400: A characteristic metrical foot and the number of feet per line. The number of metrical feet in a line are described using Greek terminology: tetrameter for four feet and hexameter for six feet, for example. Thus, " iambic pentameter " is a meter comprising five feet per line, in which the predominant kind of foot is the " iamb ". This metric system originated in ancient Greek poetry , and

889-435: A common meter alone. Other poems may be organized into verse paragraphs , in which regular rhymes with established rhythms are not used, but the poetic tone is instead established by a collection of rhythms, alliterations, and rhymes established in paragraph form. Many medieval poems were written in verse paragraphs, even where regular rhymes and rhythms were used. In many forms of poetry, stanzas are interlocking, so that

1016-545: A critique of poetic tradition, testing the principle of euphony itself or altogether forgoing rhyme or set rhythm. Poets – as, from the Greek , "makers" of language – have contributed to the evolution of the linguistic, expressive, and utilitarian qualities of their languages. In an increasingly globalized world, poets often adapt forms, styles, and techniques from diverse cultures and languages. A Western cultural tradition (extending at least from Homer to Rilke ) associates

1143-572: A definition that could encompass formal differences as great as those between Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and Matsuo Bashō 's Oku no Hosomichi , as well as differences in content spanning Tanakh religious poetry , love poetry, and rap . Until recently, the earliest examples of stressed poetry had been thought to be works composed by Romanos the Melodist ( fl. 6th century CE). However, Tim Whitmarsh writes that an inscribed Greek poem predated Romanos' stressed poetry. Classical thinkers in

1270-456: A family, who is suffering from extreme paranoia, complaining about the cold war, bombs, pollution, terrorism, lawyers, dictators, and of course taxes. He has taken to hiding in a crack in the ground cave armed with a hockey stick to await the end of Western Civilization with his six-week supply of canned goods. Television comedy The situation comedy , or sitcom , has become one of the most commonly-watched types of television comedy. As

1397-722: A given foot or line and to avoid boring repetition. For example, the stress in a foot may be inverted, a caesura (or pause) may be added (sometimes in place of a foot or stress), or the final foot in a line may be given a feminine ending to soften it or be replaced by a spondee to emphasize it and create a hard stop. Some patterns (such as iambic pentameter) tend to be fairly regular, while other patterns, such as dactylic hexameter, tend to be highly irregular. Regularity can vary between language. In addition, different patterns often develop distinctively in different languages, so that, for example, iambic tetrameter in Russian will generally reflect

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1524-588: A high level of respect, though occasionally some of the lodge members will challenge his authority in one way or another. Harold ( Patrick McKenna ) is Red's nephew and the fictional producer and director of The Red Green Show . He is a nerd , having a significant overbite , wearing thick glasses, and is very eager and sensitive. He is often appalled by Red and the other lodge members and he puts much effort into trying to change everyone's behaviour, usually with little or no success. Harold's advanced knowledge of computers , television and technology originally land him

1651-472: A joke in one episode, where Red says "The question is, can you do anything with crap? Obviously the answer is yes, we're in our fourteenth season." Smith decided that the fifteenth season of the show would be the last, he told a reporter that when it came to his entertainment career "I kind of sense when things are coming to an end and I get ahead of it." He wanted to avoid going "one season too many" otherwise "It will at best be repetitive..." The series finale

1778-401: A key part of their structure, so that the metrical pattern determines when the listener expects instances of alliteration to occur. This can be compared to an ornamental use of alliteration in most Modern European poetry, where alliterative patterns are not formal or carried through full stanzas. Alliteration is particularly useful in languages with less rich rhyming structures. Assonance, where

1905-681: A larger entertainment extravaganza. Some gameshows may give the guests a chance to perform stand up comedy to win a round. Examples of this genre in the UK include Have I Got News For You , 8 Out of 10 Cats , Mock the Week , and Never Mind the Buzzcocks . In the US this is a less common genre, Oblivious being one of the few examples. In Japan and South Korea, these comedy gameshows , often with subtitles and word bubbles , are extremely popular. A comedy-drama ,

2032-486: A man, but I changed, because I had to. Oh, well." Steve Smith later identified that this was a tribute to his wife Morag, who had simply commented "Oh, well" upon viewing the first episode in 1991. In one episode, women hold a retreat at Possum Lodge and sit in on the meeting, changing the prayer to " I am woman, hear me roar . I'm in charge. Get over it." Smith originally created the character of Red Green for his 1979–1985 sketch comedy series Smith & Smith . The sketch

2159-416: A meaning separate from the repetitive sound patterns created. For example, Chaucer used heavy alliteration to mock Old English verse and to paint a character as archaic. Rhyme consists of identical ("hard-rhyme") or similar ("soft-rhyme") sounds placed at the ends of lines or at locations within lines (" internal rhyme "). Languages vary in the richness of their rhyming structures; Italian, for example, has

2286-487: A member of the Possum Lodge until at the end when the brotherhood accepted and took him in. Bill ( Rick Green ) is the star of the "Adventures with Bill" segments, presented as silent black-and-white home movies with voiceover narration by Red and comical sound effects. In these segments, he attempts to perform various outdoor activities, such as camping, playing a sport, or building something, with assistance from one or more other characters (frequently including Red). However,

2413-523: A message to his wife Bernice, usually a double entendre , followed by his signature piece of life advice in the form of a hockey metaphor: "Keep your stick on the ice." Beginning with the second season, the end of each episode also incorporates a meeting of the Possum Lodge members in the basement, opened by a sound effect of a squealing possum and a recitation of the Lodge motto: "Quando omni flunkus moritati" , mock Latin for "When all else fails, play dead". This

2540-669: A number of poets, including William Shakespeare and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow , respectively. The most common metrical feet in English are: There are a wide range of names for other types of feet, right up to a choriamb , a four syllable metric foot with a stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables and closing with a stressed syllable. The choriamb is derived from some ancient Greek and Latin poetry . Languages which use vowel length or intonation rather than or in addition to syllabic accents in determining meter, such as Ottoman Turkish or Vedic , often have concepts similar to

2667-420: A process known as lineation . These lines may be based on the number of metrical feet or may emphasize a rhyming pattern at the ends of lines. Lines may serve other functions, particularly where the poem is not written in a formal metrical pattern. Lines can separate, compare or contrast thoughts expressed in different units, or can highlight a change in tone. See the article on line breaks for information about

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2794-473: A regularity in the use of accents to reinforce the meter, which does not occur, or occurs to a much lesser extent, in English. Some common metrical patterns, with notable examples of poets and poems who use them, include: Rhyme, alliteration, assonance and consonance are ways of creating repetitive patterns of sound. They may be used as an independent structural element in a poem, to reinforce rhythmic patterns, or as an ornamental element. They can also carry

2921-693: A resonance between otherwise disparate images—a layering of meanings, forming connections previously not perceived. Kindred forms of resonance may exist, between individual verses , in their patterns of rhyme or rhythm. Some poetry types are unique to particular cultures and genres and respond to characteristics of the language in which the poet writes. Readers accustomed to identifying poetry with Dante , Goethe , Mickiewicz , or Rumi may think of it as written in lines based on rhyme and regular meter . There are, however, traditions, such as Biblical poetry and alliterative verse , that use other means to create rhythm and euphony . Much modern poetry reflects

3048-430: A rich rhyming structure permitting maintenance of a limited set of rhymes throughout a lengthy poem. The richness results from word endings that follow regular forms. English, with its irregular word endings adopted from other languages, is less rich in rhyme. The degree of richness of a language's rhyming structures plays a substantial role in determining what poetic forms are commonly used in that language. Alliteration

3175-490: A ridiculous claim to have been a significant person in history, or to have accomplished some incredible feat. Nobody else on the show believes him, but he will go to great lengths to tell his stories anyway. For example, he has claimed that he owns a coat that belonged to Santa Claus , that he once filled in for Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones , that he once raised tigers in Kenya, had a magnetized metal plate in his head, drove

3302-414: A sentence without putting the sound only at the front of a word. Consonance provokes a more subtle effect than alliteration and so is less useful as a structural element. In many languages, including Arabic and modern European languages, poets use rhyme in set patterns as a structural element for specific poetic forms, such as ballads , sonnets and rhyming couplets . However, the use of structural rhyme

3429-550: A series of 23 short "educational" cartoons about the environment. Written, animated, produced, directed, and voiced by Gord in person, these films always feature an animated version of Gord as a muscle-bound superhero type (sometimes with absurdly-bombastic and self-aggrandizing opening titles such as "Ranger Gord presents: Ranger Gord in Ranger Gord's educational films. Drawn, written, produced, and voiced by Ranger Gord. Starring Ranger Gord"), and Red and Harold Green make appearances as

3556-468: A series of more subtle, more flexible prosodic elements. Thus poetry remains, in all its styles, distinguished from prose by form; some regard for basic formal structures of poetry will be found in all varieties of free verse, however much such structures may appear to have been ignored. Similarly, in the best poetry written in classic styles there will be departures from strict form for emphasis or effect. Among major structural elements used in poetry are

3683-549: A series or stack of lines on a page, which follow a rhythmic or other deliberate structure. For this reason, verse has also become a synonym (a metonym ) for poetry. Poetry has a long and varied history , evolving differentially across the globe. It dates back at least to prehistoric times with hunting poetry in Africa and to panegyric and elegiac court poetry of the empires of the Nile , Niger , and Volta River valleys. Some of

3810-404: A son and daughter who strongly resemble them in appearance and style of dress. Harold and Red spend much of their time on the show trading insults and poking fun at each other. While they have shown they can cooperate with one another at times, Harold is often very critical of Red's ideas and schemes, but usually ends up going along with them anyway. In the film Duct Tape Forever , Harold is not

3937-574: A staple of variety and late-night talk shows; talk-variety shows such as The Tonight Show traditionally open with a comedy monologue performed by the program host. Television stand-up reached a peak of popularity on British schedules with the ITV programme The Comedians . Their style of comedy was swept away almost entirely in the Britain of the early 1980s when a new generation of stand-ups challenged what they saw as racist and sexist humour and revolutionised

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4064-549: A tape recorder, and he claims to use baked beans as his alarm clock. In one episode, he is found by Red to be hibernating. Gord has worked in his watch tower for more than eighteen years without a paycheque and claims to have been a forest ranger his entire life. His apparent reason for becoming a ranger was that he thought Smokey Bear was talking directly to him in one of his famous public service announcements ("Only you can prevent forest fires "). He frequently breaks out in tears during Red's visits as he talks about how lonely he

4191-424: Is a Scottish Postal Worker who is "in the process" of restoring an old wooden boat in his spare time, at the expense of losing his wife who left him. Through several episodes, he demonstrates how to repair certain portions, such as using autographed novels as shims for the motor, and a ceiling fan and a camera tripod as the propeller and propeller shaft, respectively. Jack ( Tim Sims ) is an advertising executive with

4318-639: Is a married, middle-aged man who considers himself a proficient handyman, while others do not. He is the president of the Possum Lodge, a fictional men's club in the small northwestern Ontario town of Possum Lake, near the also-fictional town of Port Asbestos. Much of the show centres around Red and his friends at Possum Lodge attempting to fix various problems in the area or carry out projects, but their plans almost always lead to comically disastrous results thanks to Red's use of poorly thought-out shortcuts. He trusts most of his work to duct tape , which he calls "the handyman's secret weapon". The show's basic concept

4445-543: Is a nod to Pinsent's own military service as a soldier in the Regiment during the early 1950s. Dougie Franklin ( Ian Thomas ) is an American immigrant who drives a huge "Meals on 4 Wheels" monster truck he calls "Imelda", and who is a self-proclaimed expert in two areas of life: cars and women, in spite of never having had a successful date, and several automotive altercations, partly due to his inability to understand Canadian traffic laws, and his reckless driving. His brother Ben

4572-531: Is a program that combines humor with more serious dramatic elements, aiming for a considerably more realistic tone than conventional sitcoms. These programs are shot with a single-camera setup and presented without a laugh track, and typically run an hour in length. This can refer to a genre of television or radio drama series. There are different subgenres within this category, such as the medical comedy dramas like M*A*S*H and Grey's Anatomy , legal comedy dramas like Ally McBeal and Boston Legal , and

4699-638: Is an accepted version of this page Poetry (from the Greek word poiesis , "making") is a form of literary art that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language to evoke meanings in addition to, or in place of, literal or surface-level meanings. Any particular instance of poetry is called a poem and is written by a poet . Poets use a variety of techniques called poetic devices, such as assonance , alliteration , euphony and cacophony , onomatopoeia , rhythm (via metre ), and sound symbolism , to produce musical or other artistic effects. Most written poems are formatted in verse :

4826-404: Is an attempt to render the beautiful or sublime without the burden of engaging the logical or narrative thought-process. English Romantic poet John Keats termed this escape from logic " negative capability ". This "romantic" approach views form as a key element of successful poetry because form is abstract and distinct from the underlying notional logic. This approach remained influential into

4953-465: Is an obvious pun on Gord still having a "dead-end job", just like his former merely-self-maintained forest ranger position that the National Forest Service cared nothing about. Hap Shaughnessy ( Gordon Pinsent ) is the water-taxi captain of Possum Lake, but he is much better known at Possum Lodge for his self-aggrandizing tall tales. In virtually every appearance he makes on the show, he makes

5080-588: Is considered to be one of the official Confucian classics . His remarks on the subject have become an invaluable source in ancient music theory . The efforts of ancient thinkers to determine what makes poetry distinctive as a form, and what distinguishes good poetry from bad, resulted in " poetics "—the study of the aesthetics of poetry. Some ancient societies, such as China's through the Shijing , developed canons of poetic works that had ritual as well as aesthetic importance. More recently, thinkers have struggled to find

5207-449: Is frequently followed by a reading of general announcements and/or a recitation of the Man's Prayer: "I'm a man, but I can change, if I have to, I guess." During the second season, the meeting begins before the closing credits and continues under them; in all subsequent seasons, the meeting only runs under the credits. The final episode of the series features an altered version of the prayer: "I'm

The Red Green Show - Misplaced Pages Continue

5334-554: Is it Anyway? was created in 1988 by The Comedy Store Players , Mike Myers ' improvisation students in London. It began broadcasting in the UK before expanding to the US, with Drew Carey starring in the American version until its cancellation. Some sitcoms may also use improvisation when filming. The actors of Curb Your Enthusiasm had general episode summaries to rely on, but would often create their own lines when they were in front of

5461-451: Is most often founded on the pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables (alone or elided ). In the classical languages , on the other hand, while the metrical units are similar, vowel length rather than stresses define the meter. Old English poetry used a metrical pattern involving varied numbers of syllables but a fixed number of strong stresses in each line. The chief device of ancient Hebrew Biblical poetry , including many of

5588-622: Is not universal even within the European tradition. Much modern poetry avoids traditional rhyme schemes . Classical Greek and Latin poetry did not use rhyme. Rhyme entered European poetry in the High Middle Ages , due to the influence of the Arabic language in Al Andalus . Arabic language poets used rhyme extensively not only with the development of literary Arabic in the sixth century , but also with

5715-401: Is or how much of a sacrifice he makes at his job. During one visit, Gord claimed to have gotten so lonely that he ate the watch tower and then later moved on to another tower in season 7. Gord sometimes laments his lack of recognition. Once, he thought that someone had left him some honorary medallions, only to learn from Red that they were beer bottle caps ; Gord thought that a Budweiser cap

5842-522: Is perceived. Languages can rely on either pitch or tone. Some languages with a pitch accent are Vedic Sanskrit or Ancient Greek. Tonal languages include Chinese, Vietnamese and most Subsaharan languages . Metrical rhythm generally involves precise arrangements of stresses or syllables into repeated patterns called feet within a line. In Modern English verse the pattern of stresses primarily differentiate feet, so rhythm based on meter in Modern English

5969-451: Is seldom seen wearing anything other than his distinctive outfit of a flannel shirt, khaki pants, suspenders (colored red and green as of Season 3), and a Canadian military field manoeuvres cap. According to his DVD biography, Red became the leader of Possum Lodge after gradually becoming more involved with it over time and becoming "the only guy nobody hated." At one point, he borrowed a large sum of money from his brother, who lost his job at

6096-637: Is that of a cable television show taped in front of a live audience at Possum Lodge with multiple segments recorded at other locations. The main story mostly occurs in the lodge in front of the audience, often with Red's nephew Harold using a portable studio control board he built himself to control cameras, wipes, effects, and segment cues. Many of these segments are pre-recorded on a hand-held camera by Harold, featuring Red and/or his voice-over narration. The segments and interstitial cut-scenes provide lessons and demonstrations in repair work, outdoor activities, and advice for men. Red and other characters often break

6223-546: Is the local forest ranger who spends almost all of his time alone in Fire Watch Tower 13 and, later in the series, Tower 3. His full name is Gordon Ranger, but he prefers not to be called "Ranger Ranger." He is always seen wearing his ranger outfit (which he apparently launders using only a blow dryer), and he finds various eccentric ways to pass his time, even while Red is visiting. For example, he has been seen making nature-sounds tapes by verbally mimicking animal noises into

6350-409: Is the repetition of letters or letter-sounds at the beginning of two or more words immediately succeeding each other, or at short intervals; or the recurrence of the same letter in accented parts of words. Alliteration and assonance played a key role in structuring early Germanic, Norse and Old English forms of poetry. The alliterative patterns of early Germanic poetry interweave meter and alliteration as

6477-407: Is the speaker, not the poet, who is the killer (unless this "confession" is a form of metaphor which needs to be considered in closer context – via close reading ). Some scholars believe that the art of poetry may predate literacy , and developed from folk epics and other oral genres. Others, however, suggest that poetry did not necessarily predate writing. The oldest surviving epic poem,

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6604-573: The Epic of Gilgamesh , dates from the 3rd millennium   BCE in Sumer (in Mesopotamia , present-day Iraq ), and was written in cuneiform script on clay tablets and, later, on papyrus . The Istanbul tablet#2461 , dating to c.   2000   BCE, describes an annual rite in which the king symbolically married and mated with the goddess Inanna to ensure fertility and prosperity; some have labelled it

6731-817: The Hurrian songs , and the Hebrew Psalms ); or from a need to retell oral epics, as with the Egyptian Story of Sinuhe , Indian epic poetry , and the Homeric epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey . Ancient Greek attempts to define poetry, such as Aristotle 's Poetics , focused on the uses of speech in rhetoric , drama , song , and comedy . Later attempts concentrated on features such as repetition , verse form , and rhyme , and emphasized aesthetics which distinguish poetry from

6858-511: The Aston Martin featured in Goldfinger which he used as an actual spy, and that he even died and came back to life at the 1988 Summer Olympics . In one episode, it is hinted that he lies about his past because he has a poor self-image. In the final episode, he claims to have been appointed Canadian ambassador to Guam . Hap is always seen wearing a Royal Canadian Regiment baseball cap, which

6985-699: The Tamil language , had rigid grammars (to the point that they could be expressed as a context-free grammar ) which ensured a rhythm. Classical Chinese poetics , based on the tone system of Middle Chinese , recognized two kinds of tones: the level (平 píng ) tone and the oblique (仄 zè ) tones, a category consisting of the rising (上 sháng ) tone, the departing (去 qù ) tone and the entering (入 rù ) tone. Certain forms of poetry placed constraints on which syllables were required to be level and which oblique. The formal patterns of meter used in Modern English verse to create rhythm no longer dominate contemporary English poetry. In

7112-587: The West employed classification as a way to define and assess the quality of poetry. Notably, the existing fragments of Aristotle 's Poetics describe three genres of poetry—the epic, the comic, and the tragic—and develop rules to distinguish the highest-quality poetry in each genre, based on the perceived underlying purposes of the genre. Later aestheticians identified three major genres: epic poetry, lyric poetry , and dramatic poetry , treating comedy and tragedy as subgenres of dramatic poetry. Aristotle's work

7239-491: The fourth wall , directing glances and reactions at the audience and/or camera. Some skits regularly interact with the audience, including expected verbal responses from the crowd. The show's structure evolved over time and included several regular segments that appeared in almost every episode, interspersed with the main plot. The most frequent segments were "The Possum Lodge Word Game", "Handyman Corner", "Adventures with Bill", and "North of Forty". A black-and-white segment in

7366-411: The musical comedy drama Glee . Sketch comedy programs differ from sitcoms in that they do not basically feature recurring characters (though some characters and scenarios may be repeated) and often draw upon current events and emphasize satire over character development. Sketch comedy was pioneered by Sid Caesar , whose Your Show of Shows debuted in 1950 and established many conventions of

7493-519: The psalms , was parallelism , a rhetorical structure in which successive lines reflected each other in grammatical structure, sound structure, notional content, or all three. Parallelism lent itself to antiphonal or call-and-response performance, which could also be reinforced by intonation . Thus, Biblical poetry relies much less on metrical feet to create rhythm, but instead creates rhythm based on much larger sound units of lines, phrases and sentences. Some classical poetry forms, such as Venpa of

7620-608: The scanning of poetic lines to show meter. The methods for creating poetic rhythm vary across languages and between poetic traditions. Languages are often described as having timing set primarily by accents , syllables , or moras , depending on how rhythm is established, although a language can be influenced by multiple approaches. Japanese is a mora -timed language. Latin , Catalan , French , Leonese , Galician and Spanish are called syllable-timed languages. Stress-timed languages include English , Russian and, generally, German . Varying intonation also affects how rhythm

7747-518: The "Ambassador of Scotch Duct Tape" for 3M . On 14 December 2008, a retrospective special titled "The Red Green Story-We're All in This Together" aired on select PBS stations. The special was released on DVD along with a book. Also, despite stating after the show's final episode that he planned to permanently retire his character, in 2010, Smith embarked on the "Wit and Wisdom Comedy Tour", in which he gave live performances as Red Green in cities across

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7874-553: The "Boating Tips" segment, where he would give advice or instructions on how to maintain and care for boats. However, he would often make Red perform these tasks for him, citing his poor health as leaving him unable to do it on his own. Glen is a Boston Red Sox fan; he is usually seen wearing a Red Sox cap. Bob Stuyvesant ( Bruce Hunter ) works for the Ministry of Natural Resources, and is frequently seen playing golf. Hotheaded and contemptuously arrogant, Bob claims to know everything about

8001-437: The "a-bc" convention, such as the ottava rima and terza rima . The types and use of differing rhyming schemes are discussed further in the main article . Poetic form is more flexible in modernist and post-modernist poetry and continues to be less structured than in previous literary eras. Many modern poets eschew recognizable structures or forms and write in free verse . Free verse is, however, not "formless" but composed of

8128-470: The 2000 U.S. presidential election, 435,000 young adults viewed Stewart's coverage, while 459,000 watched traditional news. Despite its satirical approach, journalists have stated that programs such as The Daily Show and " Weekend Update " still broadcast real news, which ensures that its producers are aware of how to cover this news in a way that viewers can gain knowledge. Stand-up comedy has been represented on television. Stand-up comedians have been

8255-514: The 20th century. During the 18th and 19th centuries, there was also substantially more interaction among the various poetic traditions, in part due to the spread of European colonialism and the attendant rise in global trade. In addition to a boom in translation , during the Romantic period numerous ancient works were rediscovered. Some 20th-century literary theorists rely less on the ostensible opposition of prose and poetry, instead focusing on

8382-578: The Indian Sanskrit -language Rigveda , the Avestan Gathas , the Hurrian songs , and the Hebrew Psalms , possibly developed directly from folk songs . The earliest entries in the oldest extant collection of Chinese poetry , the Classic of Poetry ( Shijing ), were initially lyrics . The Shijing, with its collection of poems and folk songs, was heavily valued by the philosopher Confucius and

8509-532: The Man's Prayer was revised to "I'm a man, but I changed, because I had to. Oh, well." Steve Smith later acknowledged that this was a tribute to his wife, who had simply responded with "Oh well" after watching the first episode air back in 1991. As the show gained popularity, Steve Smith also wrote a syndicated newspaper column, as Red Green, titled North of 40 in which he would give advice to readers. The show staged several live mini-telethons (sometimes called " Red Green -a-thons") for public television stations in

8636-422: The US. Television comedy is described by media scholar Bore as a way to bring audiences to a collective sense in viewing and enjoying commonly-watched programs across societies. One specific way this can be done is through laugh tracks. While some view laugh tracks as ways to allow audiences to lightheartedly poke fun at characters, others see them as ways to restrict viewers to only laugh at certain moments. For

8763-555: The United States and Canada. On 29 November 2012, Steve Smith announced a new "How to Do Everything" Tour, which kicked off in Canada in fall 2013 before going to the United States in spring 2014. The 2016 North American tour, "I'm Not Old, I'm Ripe", began in March and concluded in May, with stops in 25 U.S. cities. The 2019 North American tour, "This Could Be It", began in March 2019 and ran until

8890-426: The United States. These usually coincided with national PBS fundraising drives, and featured contests between various PBS stations carrying the show. The goal was to encourage stations to add the show to their schedules, or to continue airing it if they were already doing so; during one event, Red playfully filled a wheelbarrow with stations that had chosen to drop it from their schedules. Since 2000, Red Green has been

9017-623: The camera. News comedy is a genre that brings humour into stories reported on mainstream news, commonly adding this by creating mostly-fictional jokes to summarize true events. It is a common way for young adults to learn about the political news and events of their time. Programs that have accomplished this include The Daily Show and " Weekend Update " on Saturday Night Live . The Daily Show became more well-known when Jon Stewart began hosting in 1999. The award-winning show mocks political events and candidates, and brings in correspondents to report further on these events and people. During

9144-499: The case of free verse , rhythm is often organized based on looser units of cadence rather than a regular meter. Robinson Jeffers , Marianne Moore , and William Carlos Williams are three notable poets who reject the idea that regular accentual meter is critical to English poetry. Jeffers experimented with sprung rhythm as an alternative to accentual rhythm. In the Western poetic tradition, meters are customarily grouped according to

9271-603: The complex cultural web within which a poem is read. Today, throughout the world, poetry often incorporates poetic form and diction from other cultures and from the past, further confounding attempts at definition and classification that once made sense within a tradition such as the Western canon . The early 21st-century poetic tradition appears to continue to strongly orient itself to earlier precursor poetic traditions such as those initiated by Whitman , Emerson , and Wordsworth . The literary critic Geoffrey Hartman (1929–2016) used

9398-444: The division between lines. Lines of poems are often organized into stanzas , which are denominated by the number of lines included. Thus a collection of two lines is a couplet (or distich ), three lines a triplet (or tercet ), four lines a quatrain , and so on. These lines may or may not relate to each other by rhyme or rhythm. For example, a couplet may be two lines with identical meters which rhyme or two lines held together by

9525-795: The earliest written poetry in Africa occurs among the Pyramid Texts written during the 25th century BCE. The earliest surviving Western Asian epic poem , the Epic of Gilgamesh , was written in the Sumerian language . Early poems in the Eurasian continent evolved from folk songs such as the Chinese Shijing as well as from religious hymns (the Sanskrit Rigveda , the Zoroastrian Gathas ,

9652-437: The early days of comedy, and in shows such as Roseanne and Ellen , ratings could be changed up to TV-14 and receive a "mature content" warning as a result. Ellen DeGeneres famously came out on her show, although ABC cancelled Ellen one year later, with some gay rights groups protesting this decision. I Love Lucy became the first sitcom to have a multilingual couple. Lucy was American and spoke English, while Ricky

9779-488: The efforts degenerate into slapstick comedy due to Bill's clumsiness and disregard for personal safety, and he and the other characters invariably suffer a range of amusing injuries and mishaps. A running gag involves the Possum Van being damaged in some way, often by having one or both side-view mirrors knocked off. Bill can store large tools and assorted items in his overalls and pull them out on demand . Any noises he and

9906-455: The end of October, with shows in 34 U.S. cities and 29 Canadian cities. From September 1998 to August 7, 2017, The Red Green Show aired on The Comedy Network . From 2002 to 2005, reruns aired on CBC, Thursdays at 12:30pm and Saturdays at 6:30pm Eastern. In the United States, digital multicast network Heartland added reruns of the show to its schedule in September 2018. There is also currently

10033-411: The end of the series; here, Red and one or more of his friends gave ridiculous advice in response to alleged viewer letters. The host of "The Experts" (usually Harold) introduced the segment by referring to "those three little words men find so hard to say." The words in question were "I don't know," at first said by the host and later shouted by the studio audience. Episodes typically end with Red giving

10160-506: The first half of the 20th century coincided with a questioning of the purpose and meaning of traditional definitions of poetry and of distinctions between poetry and prose, particularly given examples of poetic prose and prosaic poetry. Numerous modernist poets have written in non-traditional forms or in what traditionally would have been considered prose, although their writing was generally infused with poetic diction and often with rhythm and tone established by non-metrical means. While there

10287-523: The first six seasons, Red often recited short bits of poetry in the woods. Some of these segments were named after a particular season and included Red's commentary on it, while others were presented as original poems and often included a humorous twist on a well-known saying. During the first eight seasons, Red and Harold would perform a humorous song while sitting by a campfire , with Red singing and playing guitar, and Harold accompanying him on spoons or other instruments and occasionally singing as well. In

10414-495: The first, second and fourth lines of a quatrain rhyme with each other and the third line do not rhyme, the quatrain is said to have an AA BA rhyme scheme . This rhyme scheme is the one used, for example, in the rubaiyat form. Similarly, an A BB A quatrain (what is known as " enclosed rhyme ") is used in such forms as the Petrarchan sonnet . Some types of more complicated rhyming schemes have developed names of their own, separate from

10541-415: The form of a silent home movie, accompanied by Red's narration, background music, and sound effects. Bill attempts to accomplish a relatively straightforward task, try out a sport, or go on some adventure, frequently assisted by Red or Harold. However, the effort invariably degenerates into slapstick comedy as the characters fall victim to a series of outlandish mishaps. Rick Green, who portrayed Bill, left

10668-407: The form under the banner alternative comedy . In the US, stand-up comedy programs became popular on many cable television channels beginning in the mid-1980s, as such "brick wall" shows (nicknamed for the stereotypical use of a fake brick wall as a backdrop) were cheap to produce and air. Stand-up humour later had mixed fortunes on the small screen, often shunted away to the small hours or as part of

10795-457: The format of more objectively-informative, academic, or typical writing, which is known as prose . Poetry uses forms and conventions to suggest differential interpretations of words, or to evoke emotive responses. The use of ambiguity , symbolism , irony , and other stylistic elements of poetic diction often leaves a poem open to multiple interpretations. Similarly, figures of speech such as metaphor , simile , and metonymy establish

10922-496: The game but still plays very badly, often becoming so frustrated after an errant shot that he throws or damages his clubs. He has been married and divorced five times. When out golfing, Bob purports to be "conducting undercover research" for the Ministry, claiming that he is taking soil and air samples. He gives pseudo-scientific names to his golf equipment, such as "dimpled ergonometer" and "wind speed calibration wrench" for his ball and putter respectively. Jimmy MacVey ( Will Millar )

11049-540: The genre. American sketch comedy reached a later peak in the mid-1970s with the debut han Saturday Night Live , originally a variety program but soon devoted mostly to sketches. In the UK, two of the more successful examples are Monty Python's Flying Circus and Little Britain . Animated cartoons have long been a source of comedy on television. Early children's programming often recycled theatrical cartoons; later, low-budget animation produced especially for television dominated Saturday-morning network programming in

11176-687: The guesser eventually says the correct word by accident or through the use of a grouping of words or another word that sounds similar to the answer , winning a cheap and undesirable prize (such as a stack of empty file folders, a trash can, or a visit to a leech farm). Red gives out sage advice from behind his fly tying workbench, usually talking to older men about married life or coping with changing society. This segment always concludes with another famous Red Green phrase: "Remember, I'm pulling for you. We're all in this together." Two characters (typically Red and one of his friends) give men advice on how to get out of trouble, usually with their wives. During

11303-414: The iamb and dactyl to describe common combinations of long and short sounds. Each of these types of feet has a certain "feel," whether alone or in combination with other feet. The iamb, for example, is the most natural form of rhythm in the English language, and generally produces a subtle but stable verse. Scanning meter can often show the basic or fundamental pattern underlying a verse, but does not show

11430-470: The idea of two central forms of humour that comedies will use: one prioritizes the joke itself and how it generates laughter from an audience, while the other prioritizes the personal characteristics of whom an actor is impersonating. Comedy has been a television genre prominent for introducing concepts that typically do not align with series' respective social norms. One of these concepts is same-sex intimacy. The appearance of these scenes were not popular in

11557-443: The job of producer and director of the television show, for which he often uses a portable device with dials and a keyboard, used to create the show's visual effects and transitions. This prop was assembled out of an Ampex VR 1200 videotape recorder control panel, a Mini-Tec terminal keyboard, and a set of rabbit-ear antennas, and was fitted with a carrying strap. Later in the show's history, he leaves Possum Lake to work for Multicorp in

11684-418: The language. Actual rhythm is significantly more complex than the basic scanned meter described above, and many scholars have sought to develop systems that would scan such complexity. Vladimir Nabokov noted that overlaid on top of the regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in a line of verse was a separate pattern of accents resulting from the natural pitch of the spoken words, and suggested that

11811-443: The latter, it can also be seen as collectively taking over the real laughter of viewers watching from home. Another aspect of audience's interpretations of comedy on television refer to how far writers go when poking fun at characters or real-life people. Saturday Night Live found itself in controversy when a sketch was performed, imitating politician David Paterson for both his political abilities and his blindness. This brought up

11938-403: The line, the stanza or verse paragraph , and larger combinations of stanzas or lines such as cantos . Also sometimes used are broader visual presentations of words and calligraphy . These basic units of poetic form are often combined into larger structures, called poetic forms or poetic modes (see the following section), as in the sonnet . Poetry is often separated into lines on a page, in

12065-523: The major American verse of the twenty-first century, may yet be seen as what Stevens called 'a great shadow's last embellishment,' the shadow being Emerson's." In the 2020s, advances in artificial intelligence (AI), particularly large language models , enabled the generation of poetry in specific styles and formats. A 2024 study found that AI-generated poems were rated by non-expert readers as more rhythmic, beautiful, and human-like than those written by well-known human authors. This preference may stem from

12192-507: The much older oral poetry, as in their long, rhyming qasidas . Some rhyming schemes have become associated with a specific language, culture or period, while other rhyming schemes have achieved use across languages, cultures or time periods. Some forms of poetry carry a consistent and well-defined rhyming scheme, such as the chant royal or the rubaiyat , while other poetic forms have variable rhyme schemes. Most rhyme schemes are described using letters that correspond to sets of rhymes, so if

12319-463: The name suggests, these programs feature recurring characters placed in humorous situations. The first television sitcom was the U.K.'s Pinwright's Progress , ten episodes being broadcast bi-weekly from November 1946 to May 1947. Since the early 1950s, with shows including Hancock's Half Hour in the U.K. (derived from a radio show), and I Love Lucy in the United States, sitcoms have become more prominent among television viewers. I Love Lucy

12446-409: The neighbouring town of Port Asbestos. He subsequently quits that job, becomes the publicity manager for Possum Lake, and falls in love with Bonnie ( Laurie Elliott ), a commercial truck driver who shares nearly all of his unusual mannerisms. Harold and Bonnie are married in the final episode of the series; a flashforward reveals that they are "slowly taking over the community" (Red's words), having had

12573-424: The ninth and tenth seasons, Red would present a brief biographical sketch of a "famous" Possum Lake resident, with additional comments by other characters. "Male Call," featured in the first six seasons, involves Harold reading a letter supposedly sent by a viewer; Red provides an answer, frequently misinterpreting the viewer's question. "The Experts" had a similar format and debuted in the third season, running until

12700-537: The opening credit sequences of Seasons 1 and 2, in Possum Lodge scenes of Season 2, briefly during the Season 3 episode "The Tanks We Get," and at the end of the series finale "Do As I Do." He is absent for Seasons 9 through 12, as Rick Green had chosen to leave The Red Green Show during that time to focus on his series History Bites . The "Adventures" segments during this period focus on other characters; Bill rejoins them beginning in Season 13. Ranger Gord ( Peter Keleghan )

12827-427: The others make are heard as muffled yells of excitement or fear, pained groans upon being injured, and occasional gibberish; the in-show explanation is that the camera used to record these segments has a weak microphone. Despite the severity of any injuries Bill might suffer in one segment, the next one always shows him fully healed and eager to try something else. Bill appears in full colour (but remains silent) during

12954-564: The phrase "the anxiety of demand" to describe the contemporary response to older poetic traditions as "being fearful that the fact no longer has a form", building on a trope introduced by Emerson. Emerson had maintained that in the debate concerning poetic structure where either "form" or "fact" could predominate, that one need simply "Ask the fact for the form." This has been challenged at various levels by other literary scholars such as Harold Bloom (1930–2019), who has stated: "The generation of poets who stand together now, mature and ready to write

13081-433: The phrase, "If the women don't find you handsome, they should at least find you handy." Red owns what is known as "the Possum Van", a 1979–1993 Dodge Ram cargo van , painted as a grey 'possum on a pale blue background, and with a licence plate reading simply "POSSUM". It is one of Red's few vehicles that actually runs. It has played (and donated) many parts in "Handyman's Corner" projects, and has been repeatedly damaged as

13208-443: The poet as simply one who creates using language, and poetry as what the poet creates. The underlying concept of the poet as creator is not uncommon, and some modernist poets essentially do not distinguish between the creation of a poem with words, and creative acts in other media. Other modernists challenge the very attempt to define poetry as misguided. The rejection of traditional forms and structures for poetry that began in

13335-457: The production of poetry with inspiration – often by a Muse (either classical or contemporary), or through other (often canonised) poets' work which sets some kind of example or challenge. In first-person poems, the lyrics are spoken by an "I", a character who may be termed the speaker , distinct from the poet (the author ). Thus if, for example, a poem asserts, "I killed my enemy in Reno", it

13462-548: The relationships between and development of characters. Improvisational comedy is a genre that features actors creating dialogue while in the process of acting. It has a history of prominence in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Before appearing on television, comedy programs were already present on the radio. Several of these programs, including The Day Today and The Mary Whitehouse Experience , eventually transferred over to television. Whose Line

13589-463: The relative simplicity and accessibility of AI-generated poetry, which some participants found easier to understand. Prosody is the study of the meter, rhythm , and intonation of a poem. Rhythm and meter are different, although closely related. Meter is the definitive pattern established for a verse (such as iambic pentameter ), while rhythm is the actual sound that results from a line of poetry. Prosody also may be used more specifically to refer to

13716-420: The rhyming scheme or other structural elements of one stanza determine those of succeeding stanzas. Examples of such interlocking stanzas include, for example, the ghazal and the villanelle , where a refrain (or, in the case of the villanelle, refrains) is established in the first stanza which then repeats in subsequent stanzas. Related to the use of interlocking stanzas is their use to separate thematic parts of

13843-517: The series aired on more than 100 American PBS affiliates at its peak. Reruns currently air on CBC Television, CTV Comedy Channel , various Public Broadcasting Service stations, and on the Red Green Channel on Roku televisions. It was produced by S&S Productions , which is owned by Steve and Morag Smith . Directors on the series include Steve Smith, Rick Green and William G. Elliott. The title character, Red Green ( Steve Smith ),

13970-523: The show from 1999 to 2003 in order to focus on the series History Bites , which he created. During his absence, the segment was re-titled "Adventures" and featured other characters. Structured like Password and Pyramid , this game requires one contestant (usually Red) to get another one to say a certain word in 30 seconds by giving them various clues. However, the guesser consistently provides humorously mismatched answers based on their preoccupation with their own work or lifestyle. In nearly all games,

14097-453: The six original shorts. All 23 shorts were designed, directed, and animated by Bryce Hallett of Frog Feet Productions. The original fire watch tower shown in seasons 1–2 was a treehouse that Steve Smith had built in his own backyard in Hamilton, Ontario for his sons' use. From seasons 3 to 6, it was filmed in an actual watch tower, in reality located at Port Carling , Ontario. By season 8, it

14224-522: The term "scud" be used to distinguish an unaccented stress from an accented stress. Different traditions and genres of poetry tend to use different meters, ranging from the Shakespearean iambic pentameter and the Homeric dactylic hexameter to the anapestic tetrameter used in many nursery rhymes. However, a number of variations to the established meter are common, both to provide emphasis or attention to

14351-399: The tower and thus was not watching out for fire the way he'd been supposed to, or else that he had accidentally started the fire himself while using a cook-stove or performing some other activity inside the tower which involved using flames or heat) and Ranger Gord was then in charge of a train station located at the end of a section of unfinished tracks and thus where no trains ever run; this

14478-421: The use of similar vowel sounds within a word rather than similar sounds at the beginning or end of a word, was widely used in skaldic poetry but goes back to the Homeric epic. Because verbs carry much of the pitch in the English language, assonance can loosely evoke the tonal elements of Chinese poetry and so is useful in translating Chinese poetry. Consonance occurs where a consonant sound is repeated throughout

14605-437: The varying degrees of stress , as well as the differing pitches and lengths of syllables. There is debate over how useful a multiplicity of different "feet" is in describing meter. For example, Robert Pinsky has argued that while dactyls are important in classical verse, English dactylic verse uses dactyls very irregularly and can be better described based on patterns of iambs and anapests, feet which he considers natural to

14732-943: The world's oldest love poem. An example of Egyptian epic poetry is The Story of Sinuhe (c. 1800 BCE). Other ancient epics includes the Greek Iliad and the Odyssey ; the Persian Avestan books (the Yasna ); the Roman national epic , Virgil 's Aeneid (written between 29 and 19 BCE); and the Indian epics , the Ramayana and the Mahabharata . Epic poetry appears to have been composed in poetic form as an aid to memorization and oral transmission in ancient societies. Other forms of poetry, including such ancient collections of religious hymns as

14859-507: Was Cuban and spoke Spanish. The relationship between spouses in sitcoms has also changed throughout history. In earlier shows, the women would be the ones who made comedic errors, while the men, having more dominance, would become upset at their wives. Some more recent shows, such as The King of Queens , would have the opposite roles, with the male characters making more mistakes, while their more sophisticated wives would become upset at their husbands for their actions. Poetry This

14986-459: Was a parody of the long-running Canadian outdoors show The Red Fisher Show (1968–1989), starring B.H. "Red" Fisher , in which Red and his friends would show silent films of their fishing trips with commentary at "Scuttlebutt Lodge". The character also appeared in Me & Max and The Comedy Mill before becoming the focus of his own series. When The Red Green Show premiered on January 4, 1991, it

15113-406: Was a set. Gord appeared in the lodge during season 7, saying that he had eaten the front legs of the tower due to hunger and caused its collapse. In the movie Duct Tape Forever , the tower had burned down (an obvious irony, since Gord's whole purpose in the tower was to watch for forest fires; the implication may have been that Gord either had been "sleeping on the job" when a lightning-bolt ignited

15240-402: Was a substantial formalist reaction within the modernist schools to the breakdown of structure, this reaction focused as much on the development of new formal structures and syntheses as on the revival of older forms and structures. Postmodernism goes beyond modernism's emphasis on the creative role of the poet, to emphasize the role of the reader of a text ( hermeneutics ), and to highlight

15367-715: Was filmed at the studios of CHCH-TV in Hamilton, Ontario for Seasons 1-2 (1991-1993), then on CFPL-TV in London for Season 3 (1993-1994), and then on the Global Television Network for Seasons 4-6 (1994-1997), and finally, on CBC Television for Seasons 7-15 (1997-2006). The show was renamed The New Red Green Show upon its move to Global, in order to distinguish it from reruns of earlier seasons, and reverted back to The Red Green Show starting in Season 8 (1998-1999). The show ended on April 5, 2006, having aired 300 half-hour episodes over 15 seasons. This longevity inspired

15494-730: Was filmed on November 5, 2005, at the Showline Studios Harbourside location. At the time when the season began taping, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation locked out staffers who were members of the Canadian Media Guild , rendering the show's regular studios at the Canadian Broadcasting Centre unavailable. The last episode concluded with the show breaking the fourth wall by thanking the audience and fans for their popularity. In addition,

15621-440: Was for being a "bud of the forest". On another occasion, Gord justified his lack of communication with his superiors as a sign that he was doing a "good job protecting the forest", to which Red suggested that his superiors most likely forgot about him. In truth, it turned out that he had been dismissed many years ago, but the message had never reached him. Later in the series (seasons 9 to 13, between 1999 and 2004), Ranger Gord made

15748-653: Was influential throughout the Middle East during the Islamic Golden Age , as well as in Europe during the Renaissance . Later poets and aestheticians often distinguished poetry from, and defined it in opposition to prose , which they generally understood as writing with a proclivity to logical explication and a linear narrative structure. This does not imply that poetry is illogical or lacks narration, but rather that poetry

15875-501: Was popular in Nielsen's audience ratings, topping the viewing charts in four out of their six years on the air. Sitcoms will often portray comedic moments through audience laughter, either through live audiences or a laugh track. They are almost always a half-hour in length, and in some cases, they will film using a multiple-camera setup . Sitcoms are seldom presented as realistic depictions of life, but they can generate honest humour through

16002-472: Was seen in a few episodes, played by Ian Thomas' actual brother Dave Thomas of SCTV . Glen Brackston ( Mark Wilson ) is the operator and only employee of Brackston's Marina, located on Possum Lake. Glen is a large and incredibly lazy man, often seen sitting on his lawn chair or napping. He has suffered five heart attacks, and has seven daughters. In the earliest seasons, his laziness was due to his obsessive focus on his RV. Later on, he would appear with Red in

16129-416: Was used by poets such as Pindar and Sappho , and by the great tragedians of Athens . Similarly, " dactylic hexameter ", comprises six feet per line, of which the dominant kind of foot is the " dactyl ". Dactylic hexameter was the traditional meter of Greek epic poetry , the earliest extant examples of which are the works of Homer and Hesiod . Iambic pentameter and dactylic hexameter were later used by

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