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The Television Portal

Flat-screen television receivers on display for sale at a consumer electronics store in 2008

Television (TV) is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. Additionally, the term can refer to a physical television set, rather than the medium of transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, entertainment, news, and sports. The medium is capable of more than "radio broadcasting", which refers to an audio signal sent to radio receivers.

Television became available in crude experimental forms in the 1920s, but only after several years of further development was the new technology marketed to consumers. After World War II, an improved form of black-and-white television broadcasting became popular in the United Kingdom and the United States, and television sets became commonplace in homes, businesses, and institutions. During the 1950s, television was the primary medium for influencing public opinion. In the mid-1960s, color broadcasting was introduced in the U.S. and most other developed countries.

In 2013, 79% of the world's households owned a television set. The replacement of earlier cathode-ray tube (CRT) screen displays with compact, energy-efficient, flat-panel alternative technologies such as LCDs (both fluorescent-backlit and LED), OLED displays, and plasma displays was a hardware revolution that began with computer monitors in the late 1990s. Most television sets sold in the 2000s were flat-panel, mainly LEDs. Major manufacturers announced the discontinuation of CRT, Digital Light Processing (DLP), plasma, and even fluorescent-backlit LCDs by the mid-2010s. LEDs are being gradually replaced by OLEDs. Also, major manufacturers have started increasingly producing smart TVs in the mid-2010s. Smart TVs with integrated Internet and Web 2.0 functions became the dominant form of television by the late 2010s. (Full article...)

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KYOU-TV (channel 15) is a television station licensed to Ottumwa, Iowa, United States, serving Ottumwa and Kirksville, Missouri, as an affiliate of Fox, NBC and The CW Plus. The station is owned by Gray Television and maintains studios on West 2nd Street in Downtown Ottumwa; its transmitter is located one mile (1.6 km) east of Richland, Iowa. A translator, K30MG-D, offers additional coverage in the Kirksville area.

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Credit: Todd Ehlers

A remote control is an electronic device used for the remote operation of a machine. The term remote control can be also referred to as "remote" or "controller" when abbreviated. It is known by many other names as well, such as the "clicker", "channel-changer", "splat", "magic hand", etc. Commonly, remote controls are used to issue commands from a distance to televisions or other consumer electronics such as stereo systems and DVD players.

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... that an NFL scheduling decision forced ESPN to change the kickoff times and television networks of the 2022 Las Vegas Bowl and the 2022 New Mexico Bowl?
... that the television series The Owl's Legacy was modelled after the ancient Greek symposium?
... that country music singer Waylon Jennings earned his GED by watching tapes of a Kentucky Educational Television series on his tour bus?
... that the 1999 television film Down Will Come Baby aired two weeks after the Columbine High School massacre and was criticized for exploiting parental fears with its depiction of child violence?
... that Sharp Corporation produced three official variants of Nintendo's Famicom in Japan, one of which was a television set that was subsequently released in the United States?
... that a scene from the television adaptation of the manga It's All About the Looks was filmed at the Tokyo Girls Collection fashion show?

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Television is business, and business is America.

— Bill Cosby

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...that Richard Hanley's book South Park and Philosophy: Bigger, Longer, and More Penetrating analyzes issues of applied ethics as presented in South Park?

...that The O.C.'s music supervisor Alexandra Patsavas worked in the music department of over fifty Roger Corman B-movies before her television debut?

...that model Albert Reed, selected to appear in September 2007 on the United States television show Dancing with the Stars, admits that he cannot dance?

..that the time traveling premise featured in the Chrono series of video games was inspired by such television programs as The Time Tunnel?

...that the Zambian district of Chiengi has no television or telephone service?

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Rose Catherine Pinkney (born 1964) is an American television development executive. She was hired as the VP Development and Original Programming for TV Land in 2012. Pinkney has previously served as Director of Programming at Twentieth Century Fox Television, senior vice president of comedy development at Paramount Pictures Television and executive vice president of programming and production at TV One. She most recently served as the head of the television arm of Laurence Fishburne's production company, Cinema Gypsy. Among Pinkney's accolades are Network Journal's 25 Most Influential Black Women in Business, Cable World's Top 50 Women in Cable and Black Enterprise's Top 50 Entertainment Executives. (Full article...)

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James T. Aubrey Kroger Babb Rudolph Cartier Sydney Newman Eric Bana Kylie Minogue Peter Jennings KaDee Strickland Austin Nichols Aaron Sorkin Jake Gyllenhaal Dan Rather Brad Pitt Walter Cronkite Tom Brokaw John Le Mesurier George Formby Dan Castellaneta Perry Como Red Skelton

General images

The following are images from various television-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1Baird in 1925 with his televisor equipment and dummies "James" and "Stooky Bill" (right) (from History of television)
Image 2An early Smart TV from 2012 running the discontinued Orsay platform (from History of television)
Image 3The Philco Predicta, 1958. In the collection of The Children's Museum of Indianapolis (from History of television)
Image 4LG Electronics smart TV from 2011 (from Smart TV)
Image 5This live image of actress Paddy Naismith was used to demonstrate Telechrome, John Logie Baird's first all-electronic color television system, which used two projection CRTs. The two-color image would be similar to the basic Telechrome system. (from Color television)
Image 6DBS satellite dishes (from History of television)
Image 7The first mass-produced Czechoslovak TV-set Tesla 4001A (1953–57) (from History of television)
Image 8Philo Farnsworth in 1924 (from History of television)
Image 9Hovannes Adamian c. 1900s (from Color television)
Image 10Smart TVs on display (from Smart TV)
Image 11First television test broadcast transmitted by the NHK Broadcasting Technology Research Institute in May 1939 (from History of television)
Image 12RCA CT-100 at the SPARK Museum of Electrical Invention playing Superman. The RCA CT-100 was the first mass-produced color TV set. (from Color television)
Image 13Samsung's discontinued Orsay platform (from Smart TV)
Image 14Family watching TV, 1958 (from History of television)
Image 15A color television test at the Mount Kaukau transmitter site, New Zealand in 1970.
A test pattern with color bars is used to calibrate the signal. (from Color television)
Image 16Ad for the beginning of experimental television broadcasting in New York City by RCA in 1939 (from History of television)
Image 17RCA 630-TS, the first mass-produced television set, which sold in 1946–1947 (from History of television)
Image 18The Nipkow disk. This schematic shows the circular paths traced by the holes, which may also be square for greater precision. The area of the disk outlined in black shows the region scanned. (from History of television)
Image 19LG Smart TV using the Web browser (from Smart TV)
Image 20Color bars used in a test pattern, sometimes used when no program material is available (from History of television)
Image 21A map depicting digital terrestrial television standards (from Digital television)
Image 22Manfred von Ardenne in 1933 (from History of television)
Image 23Ferdinand Braun (from History of television)
Image 24Comparison of image quality between ISDB-T (1080i broadcast, top) and NTSC (480i transmission, bottom) (from Digital television)

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Featured lists have been determined by the Wikipedia community to be the best lists on English Wikipedia.

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Breaking Bad is an American television crime drama series created by Vince Gilligan that premiered on AMC on January 20, 2008. Set in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the show follows the life of Walter White (Bryan Cranston), a high school chemistry teacher struggling with stage-three lung cancer who decides to produce and distribute crystal meth with his former student Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul) to secure his family's financial future. Concurrently, his wife Skyler (Anna Gunn) grows suspicious and his brother-in-law and DEA agent Hank Schrader (Dean Norris) begins to investigate. After five seasons and a total of 62 episodes, the series concluded on September 29, 2013.

Upon its release, Breaking Bad became one of the highest-rated shows on network television and received universal acclaim, with particular praise for its acting, characters, writing, direction, and cinematography; it entered the Guinness World Records in 2014 as the most critically acclaimed show of all time. Its impact on television resulted in the creation of the spin-off series Better Call Saul, centered on the character of Saul Goodman (Bob Odenkirk), and a sequel released in 2019 as El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie, both of which also received positive reviews. (Full article...)
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What Would You Do? (commonly abbreviated as WWYD, and formerly known as Primetime: What Would You Do? through the program's fifth season) is an American situational hidden camera television series that has been broadcast on the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) since February 26, 2008. Created by Chris Whipple, the show with a social experiment format follows the reactions of passing strangers as they encounter conflict or illegal activity in a public setting, unaware that it is all staged and being recorded with hidden cameras. Throughout all of its seventeen seasons, the show has been hosted by news correspondent John Quiñones.

Appearing periodically on ABC's Primetime from 2005 to 2007, What Would You Do? became an instant success for the ABC network. Following the 2007 writers' strike, ABC ordered the first season of the show. The series was annually renewed for a second, third, fourth, and fifth season. Starting with the sixth season, the show began to feature guest appearances, which included Barbara Corcoran, Howie Mandel, and Meredith Vieira. Following the seventh season, What Would You Do? aired its first Christmas special in its eighth season. This was followed by guest appearances by Daymond John and Pnina Tornai in the show's ninth season, Winnie Harlow in the show's tenth season, and an era without guests in the show's eleventh and twelfth seasons. A 10-year anniversary special was aired in 2017 as the season finale of the thirteenth season, titled "What Would You Do?: Then and Now", featuring scenarios originally aired on Primetime and in season one being remade with the same actors in the same locations. Following the fourteenth and fifteenth seasons of the show, ABC announced that they would air episodes filmed before the COVID-19 pandemic as part of the show's sixteenth season, as well as a special hosted by Gio Benitez as part of the sixteenth season's season finale. In May 2023, ABC renewed the series for a seventeenth season after a three-year hiatus. (Full article...)

Season	Episodes	Originally aired		Rank	Rating
Season	Episodes	First aired	Last aired	Rank	Rating
1	9	March 27, 2005 (2005-03-27)	May 22, 2005 (2005-05-22)	8	11.6
2	27	September 25, 2005 (2005-09-25)	May 15, 2006 (2006-05-15)	5	12.5
3	25	September 21, 2006 (2006-09-21)	May 17, 2007 (2007-05-17)	7	12.1
4	17	September 27, 2007 (2007-09-27)	May 22, 2008 (2008-05-22)	9	10.4
5	24	September 25, 2008 (2008-09-25)	May 14, 2009 (2009-05-14)	10	9.6
6	24	September 24, 2009 (2009-09-24)	May 20, 2010 (2010-05-20)	11	9.0
7	22	September 23, 2010 (2010-09-23)	May 19, 2011 (2011-05-19)	17	7.5
8	24	September 22, 2011 (2011-09-22)	May 17, 2012 (2012-05-17)	21	7.6
9	24	September 27, 2012 (2012-09-27)	May 16, 2013 (2013-05-16)	18	7.7
10	24	September 26, 2013 (2013-09-26)	May 15, 2014 (2014-05-15)	11	8.5
11	25	September 25, 2014 (2014-09-25)	May 14, 2015 (2015-05-14)	17	7.8
12	24	September 24, 2015 (2015-09-24)	May 19, 2016 (2016-05-19)	11	7.9
13	24	September 22, 2016 (2016-09-22)	May 18, 2017 (2017-05-18)	16	7.3
14	24	September 28, 2017 (2017-09-28)	May 17, 2018 (2018-05-17)	12	7.1
15	25	September 27, 2018 (2018-09-27)	May 16, 2019 (2019-05-16)	20	6.5
16	21	September 26, 2019 (2019-09-26)	April 9, 2020 (2020-04-09)	30	7.0
17	17	November 12, 2020 (2020-11-12)	June 3, 2021 (2021-06-03)	36	7.6
18	20	September 30, 2021 (2021-09-30)	May 26, 2022 (2022-05-26)	34	6.4
19	20	October 6, 2022 (2022-10-06)	May 18, 2023 (2023-05-18)	42	5.2
20	10	March 14, 2024 (2024-03-14)	May 30, 2024 (2024-05-30)	42	5.1

(Full article...)

Season	Episodes	Originally aired
Season	Episodes	First aired	Last aired
Day 1	24	November 6, 2001 (2001-11-06)	May 21, 2002 (2002-05-21)
Day 2	24	October 29, 2002 (2002-10-29)	May 20, 2003 (2003-05-20)
Day 3	24	October 28, 2003 (2003-10-28)	May 25, 2004 (2004-05-25)
Day 4	24	January 9, 2005 (2005-01-09)	May 23, 2005 (2005-05-23)
Day 5	24	January 15, 2006 (2006-01-15)	May 22, 2006 (2006-05-22)
Day 6	24	January 14, 2007 (2007-01-14)	May 21, 2007 (2007-05-21)
Redemption	1	November 23, 2008 (2008-11-23)
Day 7	24	January 11, 2009 (2009-01-11)	May 18, 2009 (2009-05-18)
Day 8	24	January 17, 2010 (2010-01-17)	May 24, 2010 (2010-05-24)
Live Another Day	12	May 5, 2014 (2014-05-05)	July 14, 2014 (2014-07-14)

(Full article...)

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No. overall	No. in season	Title	Directed by	Written by	Original air date	Prod. code	U.S. viewers (millions)
82	1	"Homer's Barbershop Quartet"	Mark Kirkland	Jeff Martin	September 30, 1993 (1993-09-30)	9F21	19.9
83	2	"Cape Feare"	Rich Moore	Jon Vitti	October 7, 1993 (1993-10-07)	9F22	20.0
84	3	"Homer Goes to College"	Jim Reardon	Conan O'Brien	October 14, 1993 (1993-10-14)	1F02	18.1
85	4	"Rosebud"	Wes Archer	John Swartzwelder	October 21, 1993 (1993-10-21)	1F01	19.5
86	5	"Treehouse of Horror IV"	David Silverman	Conan O'Brien (wraparounds)	October 28, 1993 (1993-10-28)	1F04	24.0
				Greg Daniels & Dan McGrath
				Bill Oakley & Josh Weinstein
				Bill Canterbury
87	6	"Marge on the Lam"	Mark Kirkland	Bill Canterbury	November 4, 1993 (1993-11-04)	1F03	21.7
88	7	"Bart's Inner Child"	Bob Anderson	George Meyer	November 11, 1993 (1993-11-11)	1F05	18.7
89	8	"Boy-Scoutz 'n the Hood"	Jeffrey Lynch	Dan McGrath	November 18, 1993 (1993-11-18)	1F06	20.1
90	9	"The Last Temptation of Homer"	Carlos Baeza	Frank Mula	December 9, 1993 (1993-12-09)	1F07	20.6
91	10	"$pringfield (or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Legalized Gambling)"	Wes Archer	Bill Oakley & Josh Weinstein	December 16, 1993 (1993-12-16)	1F08	17.9
92	11	"Homer the Vigilante"	Jim Reardon	John Swartzwelder	January 6, 1994 (1994-01-06)	1F09	20.1
93	12	"Bart Gets Famous"	Susie Dietter	John Swartzwelder	February 3, 1994 (1994-02-03)	1F11	20.0
94	13	"Homer and Apu"	Mark Kirkland	Greg Daniels	February 10, 1994 (1994-02-10)	1F10	21.8
95	14	"Lisa vs. Malibu Stacy"	Jeffrey Lynch	Bill Oakley & Josh Weinstein	February 17, 1994 (1994-02-17)	1F12	19.9
96	15	"Deep Space Homer"	Carlos Baeza	David Mirkin	February 24, 1994 (1994-02-24)	1F13	18.2
97	16	"Homer Loves Flanders"	Wes Archer	David Richardson	March 17, 1994 (1994-03-17)	1F14	18.0
98	17	"Bart Gets an Elephant"	Jim Reardon	John Swartzwelder	March 31, 1994 (1994-03-31)	1F15	17.0
99	18	"Burns' Heir"	Mark Kirkland	Jace Richdale	April 14, 1994 (1994-04-14)	1F16	14.7
100	19	"Sweet Seymour Skinner's Baadasssss Song"	Bob Anderson	Bill Oakley & Josh Weinstein	April 28, 1994 (1994-04-28)	1F18	19.7
101	20	"The Boy Who Knew Too Much"	Jeffrey Lynch	John Swartzwelder	May 5, 1994 (1994-05-05)	1F19	15.5
102	21	"Lady Bouvier's Lover"	Wes Archer	Bill Oakley & Josh Weinstein	May 12, 1994 (1994-05-12)	1F21	15.1
103	22	"Secrets of a Successful Marriage"	Carlos Baeza	Greg Daniels	May 19, 1994 (1994-05-19)	1F20	15.6

Season	Episodes	Originally aired		Rank	Average Viewers (in millions)
Season	Episodes	First aired	Last aired	Rank	Average Viewers (in millions)
1	7	January 31, 1999	May 16, 1999	33	14.12
2	21	September 23, 1999	August 1, 2000	114	6.74
3	22	July 11, 2001	November 9, 2003	125	5.61
4	30	May 1, 2005	May 21, 2006	68	7.90
5	18	September 10, 2006	May 20, 2007	71	8.69
6	12	September 23, 2007	May 4, 2008	84	9.21
7	16	September 28, 2008	May 17, 2009	69	7.82
8	21	September 27, 2009	June 20, 2010	53	7.13
9	18	September 26, 2010	May 22, 2011	56	6.78
10	23	September 25, 2011	May 20, 2012	63	5.65
11	22	September 30, 2012	May 19, 2013	62	5.39
12	21	September 29, 2013	May 18, 2014	78	4.65
13	18	September 28, 2014	May 17, 2015	94	3.84
14	20	September 27, 2015	May 22, 2016	111	3.09
15	20	September 25, 2016	May 21, 2017	116	2.76
16	20	October 1, 2017	May 20, 2018	136	2.54
17	20	September 30, 2018	May 12, 2019	131	2.35
18	20	September 29, 2019	May 17, 2020	107	1.80
19	20	September 27, 2020	May 16, 2021	120	1.55
20	20	September 26, 2021	May 22, 2022	111	1.25
21	20	September 25, 2022	May 7, 2023	104	1.19
22	15	October 1, 2023	April 17, 2024 (2024-04-17)	115	1.03

(Full article...)

Holby City is a British medical drama television series that was broadcast on BBC One in the United Kingdom between 12 January 1999 and 29 March 2022. The series was created by Tony McHale and Mal Young as a spin-off from the BBC medical drama Casualty, which is set in the emergency department of the fictional Holby City Hospital, based in the equally fictitious town of Holby. Young wanted to explore what happened to patients treated in Casualty once they were taken away to the hospital's surgical wards. He opined that Casualty limited itself to "accident of the week" storylines, while Holby City allowed the possibility of storylines about long-term care, rather than immediate life-and-death decisions.

Holby City has earned various awards and nominations, with the nominations in categories ranging from Best Drama to its writing and editing work to the cast's acting performance. It received nominations for eight awards from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTAs), winning the Best Continuing Drama in the 2008 British Academy Television Awards — an award for which it was unsuccessfully nominated in for three years prior to winning and five years after winning. Despite being the most shortlisted Holby City actress, Amanda Mealing (who portrayed Connie Beauchamp) did not win any awards for her role. Jimmy Akingbola was the most acclaimed actor from the series, winning two awards for his role as Antoine Malick. Rebecca Wojciechowski and Peter Mattessi are the only members of the show's production team to win an accolade; they have each won a Writers' Guild of Great Britain award. The serial has also been nominated for 32 awards at the National Television Awards, although it never won. (Full article...)

Survivor is an American reality television show, based on the Swedish program Expedition Robinson. Contestants are referred to as "castaways", and they compete against one another to become the "Sole Survivor" and win one million U.S. dollars. First airing in 2000, there currently have been a total of 46 seasons aired; the program itself has been filmed on five continents.

Contestants usually apply to be on the show, but the series has been known to recruit contestants for various seasons. For Survivor: Fiji, the producers had hoped to have a more racially diverse cast, and hoped that a more diverse group would apply after the success of the racially segregated Survivor: Cook Islands. When this did not happen, the producers turned to recruiting and in the end, only one contestant had actually submitted an application to be on the show. For the most part, contestants are virtually unknown prior to their Survivor appearance, but occasionally some well-known people are cast. (Full article...)

The Office is an American television sitcom developed by Greg Daniels and based on the British series of the same name created by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant. The show premiered on NBC on March 24, 2005, and concluded on May 16, 2013, after airing 201 episodes across nine seasons. Filmed as a mockumentary, the series depicts the everyday lives of a group of office employees in the Scranton, Pennsylvania, branch of the fictional Dunder Mifflin Paper Company. The Office initially featured Steve Carell as Michael Scott, Rainn Wilson as Dwight Schrute, John Krasinski as Jim Halpert, Jenna Fischer as Pam Beesly, and B. J. Novak as Ryan Howard; the show's cast changed significantly during its run.

Despite premiering to mixed reviews during its first season, The Office's subsequent seasons received widespread acclaim and became a success for NBC, though later seasons were criticized for a dip in quality. From 2006 to 2011, the show was nominated six consecutive times for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Comedy Series, winning for its second season. The show was also nominated for three Golden Globe Awards for Best Television Series – Musical or Comedy; five Producers Guild of America Awards for Best Episodic Comedy, winning once; the 2006 TCA Award for Program of the Year; and four TCA Awards for Outstanding Achievement in Comedy, winning twice. The Office was named as one of the top television programs of 2006 and 2008 by the American Film Institute, and in 2007, the series was recognized with a Peabody Award. (Full article...)

Gene Roddenberry (August 19, 1921 – October 24, 1991) was an American screenwriter and producer of several television series, best known for his work in creating the Star Trek franchise. Before his television writing career, he was a pilot in the 394th Bomb Squadron, 5th Bombardment Group of the Thirteenth Air Force during World War II. During his time in the military, he flew the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress, and was awarded both the Air Medal and the Distinguished Flying Cross. While working in the Los Angeles Police Department after the war, he began his television writing career, but resigned to concentrate on screenwriting. His first writing award was for an episode of Have Gun – Will Travel entitled "Helen of Abajinan" which won the Writers Guild of America award for Best Teleplay in 1958. In 1964, he registered the idea with the Writers Guild which would define the rest of his career—Star Trek.

The majority of the awards and nominations received by Roddenberry throughout his career were related to Star Trek. He was credited for Star Trek: The Original Series (known at the time simply as Star Trek) during the nominations for two Emmy Awards, and won two Hugo Awards. One Hugo was a special award for the series, while another was for "The Menagerie", the episode which used footage from the original unaired pilot for Star Trek, "The Cage". In addition, he was awarded the Brotherhood Award by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People for his work in the advancement of African American characters on television. (Full article...)

The Carry On series is a long-running British sequence of comedy films, stage shows and television programmes produced between 1958 and 1992. Distributed by Anglo-Amalgamated from 1958 to 1966, and the Rank Organisation from 1967 to 1978, the films were all made at Pinewood Studios. The series' humour relied largely on innuendo and double entendre. There were thirty-one films, four TV Christmas specials, one television series of thirteen episodes, and three West End and provincial stage plays, all made on time and to a strict budget.

Peter Rogers and Gerald Thomas were the series' sole producer and director respectively. They mostly employed the same crew and a regular group of actors. The main cast predominantly featured Sid James, Kenneth Williams, Charles Hawtrey, Joan Sims, Kenneth Connor, Peter Butterworth, Hattie Jacques, Terry Scott, Bernard Bresslaw, Barbara Windsor, Jack Douglas and Jim Dale. The Carry Ons comprise the largest number of films of any British series and, next to the James Bond films, are the second-longest continually-running UK film series (with a fourteen-year hiatus between 1978 and 1992). Between 1958 and 1992, there were seven writers, principally Norman Hudis (1958–62) and Talbot Rothwell (1963–74). The films were scored by three different composers: Bruce Montgomery from 1958–62; Eric Rogers (1963–75, 1977–78) and Max Harris who scored the 1976 film Carry On England. (Full article...)

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