Mediaboss Marketing

Has a tiger come to tea at the Lupus film studios? No, but an equally disruptive guest has turned up. There are dozens of people beavering away on each floor of this smart London townhouse animators, producers, artists when my two-year-old daughter Romy arrives for a sneak preview of what theyre working on: an animated version of Judith Kerrs beloved childrens book, The Tiger Who Came to Tea, which turned 50 last year.

Providing a rampaging toddler doesnt accidentally unplug all their computers, the animated story of Sophie, Mummy and the unexpected stripy visitor who eats and drinks them out of house and home will air on Channel 4 on Christmas Eve. But rogue two-year-olds are not all the team has had to contend with.

Three months ago, says producer Ruth Fielding, the colouring process was proving so time-consuming she doubted they had the money or time to finish it. The swift recruitment of 20 students from Middlesex University solved that problem. There was also trouble over a scene from the book that shows the tiger picking up a teapot and pouring scalding hot tea straight into his mouth. We had to add a line for Mummy that says, Be careful, its a bit ... hot! says Fielding. It makes for a comedic moment, but it was actually borne out of Channel 4 worrying that it could be classed as imitable behaviour.

There was also, more sadly, the death of the storys creator, aged 95, in May. Kerr had been very involved: advising on the script, approving the cast, even chipping in on the precise shade of red used for Sophies coat. And, before all this, Lupus first had to convince Kerr they were the right people to bring her story which has sold more than 5m copies to the screen. The hand-drawn aesthetic that made their version of Were Going on a Bear Hunt such a treat helped their case, while the fact that Kerr was allowed to weigh in on the film was doubtless another factor.

Initially, there were a few more lines for the tiger, says Robin Shaw, the director. She wasnt having any of it and she was bang on. The Tiger only says two things in the book, but you dont ever feel hes lacking in presence or character. The minute you put words in his mouth, he becomes someone else.

Shaw hit it off with Kerr: theyd talk endlessly about pencils, lines, the use of perspective. He remembers telling her how clever it was that the Tigers eyes are always perfectly aligned with the vanishing points and the focus of the page.

And she said, Oooh, really? I didnt realise Id done that. says Shaw laughing. It was all natural for her.

Was it hard to carry on after she died? Of course it was sad she wouldnt be there to see it finished. But, in a strange way, it was motivating it made us want to do an even better job.

Its time to take a tour of the building. Romy has been temporarily distracted by a tea party the team have put on for her, so I sneak out with line producer Adam Jackson-Nocher. He shows me a vast storyboard pinned along the corridor, with each panel colour-coded to show where theyre all at. Its head-spinning stuff. There are 20,000 individual drawings all needing sketching, tidying, colouring and finessing to make this 24-minute film. Technology plays a part a nifty brush has been designed to paint instant furry tiger stripes but for the most part its drawn by hand.

The team talk me through a scene where the camera is looking down from the ceiling, spinning around as buns tumble towards the table. Computer-generated animation would speed things up here, but it would also give everything a consistent correct look and that is not how Kerr drew the book. Entire kitchen units would change or even disappear with a turn of the page, depending on how Kerr wanted things to look.

To make this charming inconsistency work, an 80-strong team had to draw under strict guidance, each fully understanding not just how the tiger should look but how he moved and what sort of character he was. Hes the Roger Moore of tigers, shouts Shaw from across the room. I laugh but it turns out hes serious: He breezes in, affects everyones life, manages to get exactly what he wants, then breezes out again leaving everyone feeling kind of used but happy with that. Hes a seducer, a charmer. Hell only do something if he wants to, and will only give something if it looks like he might get something in return. Completely selfish, but in the nicest possible way.

Its time to test the magic, so we head back to the tea party room for a screening. Things get off to an unpromising start when I walk in to find Romy ignoring the biscuits and fruit juice in favour of playing with the offices fancy Fortnum and Mason china tea set. I clench my teeth as she bashes the delicate cups together.

Then just as Im cursing myself for breaking the golden never-bring-your-child-to-work-unless-you-absolutely-have-to rule the screen catches her attention. Seeing the characters shes grown to love come to life mesmerises her, even though many have still to be coloured in. Occasionally, they disappear altogether, to be replaced by handwritten notes. Despite this, its clear the story hasnt lost any of the warmth of Kerrs original. The tiger retains the slight edge of menace that makes him so captivating, and theres excellent casting in the voices of David Oyelowo (Tiger), Tamsin Greig (Mummy) and Benedict Cumberbatch (Daddy).

To turn this very short story into nearly half an hour of animation has involved a bit of licence, most notably the addition of a glorious musical interlude sung by Robbie Williams, who fell in love with the book after reading it to his daughter, Teddy. Again, Kerr had an input into this musical passage, suggesting that its references to such foods as pizza were replaced by more traditionally British items, such as ice cream and chocolate cake.

Most people who have read The Tiger Who Came to Tea will have a favourite illustration. For many, its the evening scene after Daddy comes home and, realising theres no food left in the house, takes Sophie and Mummy out to a cafe. Sophie is dressed in her nightie, coat and wellies, but just behind her sits a stripy, ginger cat in the glow of the street lights. For Fielding, one of the animations key illustrations isnt actually part of the story instead, it features on the inside sleeve of some versions of the book. It shows Sophie and the tiger drinking lemonade together through straws.

There was a bit of a eureka moment when we were writing the script because we realised that Sophie could imagine what it would be like if the tiger stayed for ever. So she recreates him going to school and sitting on her bed, then comes to the realisation that actually it would be ridiculous you cant have a tiger at home. Judith responded really well to this idea, meaning were not confined to the four walls of the house.

Indeed, if the book itself is about one thing then its imagination. The huge amount of white space on almost every page invites readers to let their own minds run free. Perhaps this is why the story lends itself to so many different readings, from feminist ones (is the Tiger the male of the house who does no housework?) to Michael Rosens notion that the stripy visitor is an intruding Gestapo officer. (Kerr grew up in Germany but the family fled to Switzerland and then Britain as the Nazis closed in.)

When we first read the book to Romy, my wife was pregnant with our second child and it was hard to avoid the metaphor: here comes a new guest to upend the nice time you had planned with Mummy. But Kerr always insisted the story be taken at face value, that its about a childs most wonderful fantasies. Romys reaction is testament to that and ever since shes seen the tiger slinking around the screen she hasnt stopped wanting him to come for tea.

The Tiger Who Came to Tea is on Channel 4 on Christmas Eve at 7.30pm.

Link:
'He's the Roger Moore of tigers!' how The Tiger Who Came to Tea came to TV - The Guardian

This article is part ofTPM Cafe, TPMs home for opinion and news analysis.

The decade that began in 2010 witnessed the gravest threats to the integrity of American democracy since the Civil War. It was the age of extreme polarization and political gerrymandering. It saw an unprecedent intervention in an American presidential election by a hostile foreign power and the advent of a dangerously self-serving president. Now it has ended with only the third impeachment of a president by the full U.S. House of Representatives in history.

In 2010, Democratic President Barack Obama achieved his greatest policy triumph when Congress passed the Affordable Care Act. It was the only major social legislation enacted without the support of a single member of the opposition party and Obama paid a political price for this victory.

Obamacares opponents, led by a new and vibrant conservative movement that styled itself the Tea Party, dominated public debate and drove approval of the law down to the 40 percent range. The Tea Party advocated limited government, fiscal responsibility, reduced taxes, and its version of traditional Christian values, including opposition to abortion and gay and lesbian rights. Survey data indicated that between 10 and 30 percent of Americans identified with the Tea Party.

In the 2010 midterm elections, Republicans regained control of the U.S. House of Representatives and secured unified control of state government in nearly every swing state. They used that power to gerrymander state legislative and congressional districts during the redistricting process that followed the decennial census of 2010. In Pennsylvania, for example, Democrats won 51 percent of the statewide, two-party congressional vote in 2012, but Republicans captured 72 percent of the states 18 congressional seats. In Wisconsins 2012 elections for state assembly, Democrats won 51 percent of the vote, but Republicans won 60 of 99 seats.

Legal battles over these gerrymandered maps would play out through much of the decade. When federal lawsuits challenging gerrymandered maps reached the U.S. Supreme Court in 2019, a 5 to 4 majority ruled that the federal courts had no role to play in adjudicating partisan gerrymandering. Legal challenges would now focus on the state courts, where, Democrats won important victories in North Carolina and Pennsylvania.

Despite Obama defeating Republican nominee Mitt Romney to win reelection in 2012, Democrats lost control of the U.S. Senate in the midterm elections of 2014. By this time the Tea Party movement had largely merged into the Republican Party, moving the party to the right and raising political polarization to the highest levels in recent history. Today, the most liberal Republicans in Congress are still more conservative than the most conservative Democrats.

When preeminent conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia died suddenly in February 2016, President Obama nominated circuit court judge Merrick Garland to replace Scalia, which would have shifted the ideological balance on the court from 5 to 4 conservative to 5 to 4 liberal. However, the Republican Senate led by Mitch McConnell of Kentucky refused even to give Garland a hearing. His nomination languished until President Donald Trump appointed circuit court judge Neil Gorsuch, which kept in place the Courts conservative majority.

In 2016 (as I predicted, contrary to the pundits and pollsters) Donald Trump won the presidential election. The Russians, under Kremlin direction, mightily assisted Trumps campaign by illegally hacking and releasing Democratic emails, placing ads on social media, and deploying trolls and bots to poison political discourse on Trumps behalf.

Trump appointed right-wing judges to judicial positions and pushed through Congress a massive tax that largely favored corporations and the wealthiest Americans. With few achievements in Congress, however, Trump largely governed by autocratic fiat. He withdrew America from the nuclear weapons accord with Iran, the Paris agreement on climate change, and the Intermediate Nuclear Forces treaty that President Ronald Reagan had negotiated with Russia. His revamped immigration policy separated the families of undocumented immigrants, imposed a travel ban on residents of certain foreign nations, seized money from the military to build his border wall, eviscerated clean air and water regulations, and throttled back efforts to control catastrophic climate change.

The president quickly came under suspicion for collusion with the Russians during his presidential campaign. In May 2017, Trump fired FBI Director James Comey, admitting that he was thinking about this Russia thing when he did so. The firing led to the appointment of Robert Mueller as a special counsel to investigate charges of coordination with the Russians and obstruction of justice.

To the disappointment of Trumps critics, Mueller produced an unreadable, 435-page report that was filled with equivocation and double negatives. Attorney General William Barr, a political appointee of President Trump, then poisoned the public dialogue by falsely spinning the report to exonerate Trump of any wrongdoing.

Still, Mueller had documented ten acts of obstruction by President Trump that, according to a bipartisan group of more than a thousand prosecutors, constituted a clear prima facie case of the criminal obstruction. But Mueller refused to take a stand, saying only, Ifwe had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime,we would havesaid so.

Mueller did not charge Trump or his associates with criminal conspiracy with the Russians, but he noted that the campaign welcomed and exploited Russias illegal meddling. He found that a lack of witness candor and a flawed production of documents hampered his conspiracy investigation. President Trump refused an in-person interview with the special counsel and answered written questions primarily by saying I dont recall.

Although Democrats had won control of the U.S. House in the 2018 midterms, the partys cautious leadership declined to follow-up the Mueller Report with an impeachment investigation of the president. Then Trump gratuitously forced the House to act by shaking down the new president of Ukraine, a nation dependent on the U.S., to investigate his political rival Joe Biden and the discredited Russian propaganda ploy that Russian interference in the 2016 election was a hoax concocted by the Democrats and Ukraine.

Chairman Adam Schiff of the House Intelligence Committee has held weeks of hearings on the Ukraine scandal. He submitted a report to the Judiciary Committee which recommended articles of impeachment on abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. The Houses charges will now be subject to a trial in the Senate under the Constitution. It remains to be seen whether the Republican-controlled Senate will hold a real trial with relevant witnesses or short-circuit the process to exonerate the president.

Allan J. Lichtman is Distinguished Professor of History at American University and the author of many acclaimed books on U.S. political history, including White Protestant Nation: The Rise of the American Conservative Movement, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, FDR and the Jews (with Richard Breitman), and The Case for Impeachment. He is regularly sought out by the media for his authoritative views on voting and elections.

Visit link:
The 2010s Were The Decade That Bent Democracy To The Breaking Point - TPM

After enjoying gains in the 2018 midterms, Democrats will pay dearly in 2020 for their impeachment push, predicts a longtime tea party activist.

Far-left Democrats successfully pushed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to support impeachment, and Democrats approved articles of impeachment despite the fact that nearly three dozen freshmen members of the caucus represent districts that voted for Trump in 2016.

Tom Zawistowski, president of the We the People Convention, insists the 2018 elections favored Democrats because Republican turnout was weak, and he predicts 2020 will be different.

In a presidential election, the turnout is going to be overwhelming, he tells OneNewsNow. There will be way more Trump people out to vote. So those people probably wouldn't have won anyway in 2020, even though they won in '18, and if they vote to impeach, they're going to be toast."

In an online commentary at American Greatness, Conrad Black says the American voters, not Democratic lawmakers, will determine Trumps re-election.

The Democrats started late, after years of huffing and puffing, he writes. They failed to impress anyone, came up empty, produced and passed a pack of lies as an argument for impeachment.

Zawistowski points out that several freshman House Democrats have been shouted down at town hall meetings by angry constituents, which he says is not typical behavior for conservatives despite what Democrats may say.

We're generally too busy working, he says. We're too busy taking care of our families, and our employees, and our customers to do this kind of stuff.

So the lesson for Democrats, he adds, is they pushed too far and frustrated Americans are pushing back.

See original here:
Prediction: Dems will endure voters' wrath in 2020 - OneNewsNow

Everyone knows Tim Allen. Hes one of Hollywoods most famous funnymen, recognized for productions such as Home Improvement, Toy Story, and The Santa Clause. But what people might not know is whether hes married or a father. Allen has always been private about his personal life and is rarely seen with anyone other than his celebrity peers. So, whats the deal?

Allen and his college sweetheart, Laura Deibel, dated for years before tying the knot in 1984. Deibel has been described as an unbelievably committed partner, as she stuck by Allens side through many hard times. Notably, Deibel supported Allen after he was sentenced to prison in the 70s for drug trafficking and as a struggling actor in the 80s.

We loved each other. It was that simple, she explained to People in 1991.

But as Allens star began to rise, they started having serious issues. After breaking out on Home Improvement (which ran from 1991 to 1999), Allens schedule became increasingly busy, leaving little time for his wife. He also started struggling with alcoholism; in 1998, he was arrested for a DUI and entered rehab for his addiction.

By 1999, Deibel had had enough. She filed to separate from the Galaxy Quest actor, citing irreconcilable differences. Their family and friends were devastated.

They were lifelong soulmates, a friend of Allens told People after the split.

Allens mother, Martha Bones, added: The situation is very unhappy for everyone.

While some hoped the two would eventually reconcile, they didnt. In 2003, the pair reached a divorce settlement and parted ways.

In 2001, Allen began dating Jane Hajduk, an actress who is best known for her role in the superhero comedy Zoom (2006). Five years later, Allen and Hajduk married in an intimate ceremony in Colorado.

Allen opened up to Closer Weekly in 2017 about how his experiences from his first marriage helped prepare him for his relationship with Hajduk, saying, Im not the same guy I was the first time [I was married] when I was hiding and doing what people who drink too much do. I was not connecting. But Ive been sober for almost 20 years. Im much more present.

As of writing, he and Hajduk are still going strong.

Allen has two children. He and Deibel have one daughter, Katherine, who was born in 1989; He shares another daughter, Elizabeth, with Hajduk. Allen and Hajduk welcomed Elizabeth in 2009.

I was gone so much in my first marriage, I love the moments when I engage with my youngest daughter now, Allen toldParade in 2011. Its not my thing to sit on the ground and play tea party, but Ill do it because its a moment that will stick with me forever.

More here:
Is Tim Allen Married and How Many Children Does He Have? - Showbiz Cheat Sheet

Illustration by Mary Kirkpatrick

First Person is a daily personal piece submitted by readers. Have a story to tell? See our guidelines at tgam.ca/essayguide.

This year, our daughter, our youngest child, entered fourth grade in New York State. The event provoked a certain amount of dread in my husband, Raj, and me. This is not because we expected her to misbehave or because the school is substandard, but because this is the year she will learn about the American Revolution.

To illustrate why two Canadian parents might have reason to grimace at this portion of an American-born childs education, I have only to look back on our family trip to Boston this summer. Having just completed the fourth-grade curriculum the previous school year, our younger son was full of pride in the Patriots (as they are referred to in the U.S. history texts) and their brave fight against the tyrannical British. He jumped at the chance to tour the Boston Tea Party museum, listening attentively as the guide expounded on the madness of King George and the oppressive laws of the British, marvelling at the courage of the Sons of Liberty and delightedly throwing crates of fake tea into Boston harbour (take that darned Brits!).

Story continues below advertisement

Raj and I listened silently to the American version of events, all the while exchanging dubious glances and wondering how we would ever break it to our little Patriot that his two Canadian parents were, in fact, the cultural heirs of those party poopers deluded enough to remain loyal to the British Crown. "Do you know about the United Empire Loyalists? I whispered to the tour guide once our son was out of hearing. Who? he replied, with a look of perplexity.

Raj and I sighed. It seemed important for our son to be aware of the Canadian perspective, but it was hard to know when to break it to him that far from admiring the revolutionaries his father and I had been taught to regard Loyalists as sole voices of sanity in a colony overtaken by mob rule. What, we wondered, would our loyal little American think when he found out that the Canadian schools that Mom and Dad attended in the 1970s and 80s represented fidelity to the British crown as a noble dedication to tradition and treated American republicanism as a dangerous fit of arrogance threatening to upend law, justice and due process? How to break it to him that the elderly lady he has seen on Canadian money is not only the direct descendant of that mad King George but is also still (still!) Canadas head of state. What, we mused, would our son say when he learned that Canadian children are brought up to admire Canadas gradual, bureaucratic progress toward independence that was finalized, not in 1776 but 1982 (for goodness sake!)

As our son stood proudly for photos outside Paul Reveres house on Bostons North Square, and reviewed the facts of Reveres famous midnight ride, Raj and I wondered how we would ever tell him that our own, Canadian version of Paul Revere was a woman named Laura Secord, that the oppressive military force whose arrival she heroically announced was none other than the Americans themselves and that the forces whose victory she ensured were, in fact, British! (Although we hoped the association of Secords name with a chocolate company making delicious candies might somewhat reconcile our son to her stature among Canadian children.)

The trepidation Raj and I felt about the effects of this information on our younger son was not unfounded. We both remembered the awful shock our older son had experienced several years previously. In this case, the child had returned from a school lesson on the Revolutionary War full of amazement at the horribleness of George III. At the time, we were living in North Carolina, a region with far less sympathy for the British even than New York State. King George was really crazy and a tyrant, our older son informed us at the family dinner that night. In his mind, this man (and his British ilk) were the undisputed villains of the piece.

While our older son was surprised when I shared the Canadian perspective on the American Revolution, his expression turned to alarm when his dad chimed in to say that he had, in fact, attended King George Junior Public School in Toronto! Our son was horrified. Here were his parents, whom he had been accustomed to see as good and righteous, now revealed as the worst kinds of traitors! All along, he had been living in a nest of vipers and never knew it! We tried to backtrack by telling him that the school was not actually named after that King George but a different one, George V, but it did little to mitigate his disgust.

As awkward and painful as it is, Raj and I keep emphasizing our alternative perspective on the American Revolution because we believe that the difference between our education and that of our kids provides, perhaps, the best history lesson of all. History, our children have learned, is complicated. How you tell it depends on your location and the networks of power and loyalty of which you are a part. One story can have many different versions, each emphasizing a different facet of events in order to bolster a different theory or a different collection of interests.

Their embarrassing Canadian parents have taught them that there are no clear villains and no undisputed freedom fighters. Was George III a tyrant or a divinely ordained monarch? Depends on how you look at him. The same can be said of Secord, whose heroic legend also conceals a more complex reality. Although Secord sided with the British in the War of 1812, she was the Massachusetts-born daughter of a man who fought on the side of the Patriots in the American Revolution. And while Secord may have provided crucial information to the British, it is also possible that they were warned of the coming Americans by their Mohawk allies.

Story continues below advertisement

Raj and I are, ourselves, part of a more complex story: Although we received one kind of education in our Canadian schoolrooms, our own immigrant backgrounds offered us different perspectives. My father, raised in the Catholic south of Ireland, had no kind words for the Queen. Rajs family roots lie in India, where British colonialism exacted a far more violent and oppressive toll than it ever did on the white American colonists. As we watch our youngest child encounter the history of the American Revolutionary War from the perspective of that conflicts winners, we wonder what her reaction will be. As for our younger son, he was philosophical about Mom and Dads weird Canadian past, Its okay, he said. Its how you were brought up. You cant help it.

Nicole Nolan Sidhu lives near Rochester, N.Y.

Read the original:
Im Canadian, my kids are American, so teaching the American Revolution is tricky - The Globe and Mail