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Information about The Tracey Ullman Show

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The Tracey Ullman Show was a weekly American television variety show, hosted by British comedian and onetime pop singer Tracey Ullman. It debuted on April 5, 1987 as the FOX network's second primetime series (after Married... with Children), and ran until May 26, 1990. The show featured sketch comedy along with many musical numbers, featuring Emmy Award-winning choreography by Paula Abdul. It also produced the hugely successful spin-off, The Simpsons.

A typical episode would begin with Ullman giving a brief introduction, ostensibly from her dressing room, leading into the opening titles (the show's theme, "You're Thinking Right", was written by George Clinton). Then two or three comedy sketches would be presented, most designed to showcase Ullman's ability to skillfully mimic various accents. One popular recurring character was timid, slow-talking Kay ("iiit's ... Kaaaaaaaayyy ...").

Typically, the final sketch of the night would include a musical number featuring Ullman and other members of the cast. The final segment saw Ullman, clad in a robe, deliver a closing monologue to the studio audience before ending the show with her catchphrase "Go Home! Go Home!" and dancing as the credits rolled. Ullman often talked about her American husband Allan and their baby Mabel.

The show ultimately won three Emmy Awards: for Outstanding Variety, Music or Comedy Program in 1989 and 1990, for Outstanding Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program in 1990. [1]

Cast

The Simpsons shorts

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The Simpsons made their first TV appearance on The Tracey Ullman Show in 1987.
Main article: The Simpsons shorts
The Simpsons family debuted in short animated cartoons on The Tracey Ullman Show before being spun off into their own half-hour series. These shorts, also called "bumpers", aired before and after commercial breaks during the first three seasons of the show.

All of them were written by Matt Groening and animated at Klasky-Csupo by a team of animators consisting of David Silverman, Wes Archer, and Bill Kopp. In the beginning, the drawings appeared very crude because the animators were more or less just tracing over Groening's storyboards, but as the series developed, so did the designs and layouts of the characters and the "Simpsons drawing style" was ultimately conceived. This style evolved even more throughout the first few seasons of The Simpsons and was used more than a decade later on Futurama, another animated series created by Matt Groening.

Dr. N!Godatu was another series of animated shorts created by M.K. Brown (and animated by the same Klasky-Csupo team). It originally alternated every other week with the Simpsons shorts, but was dropped after the first season of the show. By this point, Groening's shorts had gained much more popularity and the producers saw no reason to continue Brown's shorts.

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Motto
"In God We Trust"   (since 1956)
"E Pluribus Unum"   ("From Many, One"; Latin, traditional)
Anthem
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Television (often abbreviated to TV, T.V., or more recently, tv; sometimes called telly, the tube, boob tube, or idiot box in British English) is a widely used telecommunication system for broadcasting and receiving moving pictures
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A variety show on television is an entertainment made up of a variety of acts, especially musical performances and comedy skits, and normally introduced by a compère or host.

History

The format is basically television's version of the music hall.
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A comedian, or comic, is a performer who entertains an audience by making them laugh. This might be through jokes or amusing situations, or acting the fool, as in slapstick, or employing prop comedy.
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Tracey Ullman

Tracey Ullman in 1990
(photo by Alan Light)

Born November 30 1959 (1959--) (age 49)
Slough, Buckinghamshire (now Berkshire), United Kingdom
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April 5 is the 1st day of the year (2nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 0 days remaining.

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  • 456 - St. Patrick returns to Ireland as a missionary bishop.

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19th century - 20th century - 21st century
1950s  1960s  1970s  - 1980s -  1990s  2000s  2010s
1984 1985 1986 - 1987 - 1988 1989 1990

Year 1987 (MCMLXXXVII
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Fox Broadcasting Company

Type Broadcast television network
Availability    National; also distributed in Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean and certain other Latin American countries.
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May 26 is the 1st day of the year (2nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 0 days remaining.

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  • 451 - The Battle of Avarayr between Armenian rebels and the Sassanid Empire takes place.

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20th century - 21st century
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1987 1988 1989 - 1990 - 1991 1992 1993

Year 1990 (MCMXC) was a common year starting on Monday (link displays the 1990 Gregorian calendar).
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Sketch comedy consists of a series of short comedy scenes, or 'sketches', commonly between one and ten minutes long. Such sketches are performed by a group of comedic actors, either on stage or through an audio or/and visual medium such as broadcasting.
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Emmy Award

Emmy Award
Awarded for Excellence in television
Presented by ATAS/NATAS
Country  United States
First awarded 1949
“Emmy” redirects here.

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Paula Julie Abdul (born June 19, 1962) is an American multi-platinum selling Grammy Award-winning singer, dancer, television personality, jewelry designer, and Emmy Award-winning choreographer.
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spin-off (or spinoff) is a new organization or entity formed by a split from a larger one, such as a television series based on a pre-existing one, or as a new company formed from a university research group or business incubator.
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The Simpsons is an animated American sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. It is a soft-satirical parody of the "Middle American" lifestyle epitomized by its title family, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie.
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George Clinton (born July 22, 1941) is an American musician and the principal architect of P-Funk. He was the mastermind of the bands Parliament and Funkadelic during the 1970s and early 1980s, and was a solo funk artist as of 1981.
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Emmy Award

Emmy Award
Awarded for Excellence in television
Presented by ATAS/NATAS
Country  United States
First awarded 1949
“Emmy” redirects here.

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Tracey Ullman

Tracey Ullman in 1990
(photo by Alan Light)

Born November 30 1959 (1959--) (age 49)
Slough, Buckinghamshire (now Berkshire), United Kingdom
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Sam McMurray (born April 15, 1952 in New York) is an American television, film and voice actor. He may be best known for his work as a featured player on The Tracey Ullman Show and for minor roles in the films Raising Arizona,
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Anna Levine

Born September 18 1955 (1955--) (age 52)
New York City, United States
Died

Awards
Anna Levine is an American actress.
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Dan Castellaneta

Birth name Daniel Louis Castellaneta
Born September 29 1957 (1957--) (age 50)
Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A.
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Julie Kavner

Birth name Julie Deborah Kavner
Born September 7 1951 (1951--) (age 56)
Los Angeles, California

Julie Deborah Kavner
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Nancy Cartwright

Birth name Nancy Campbell Cartwright
Born September 25 1957 (1957--) (age 50)
Dayton, Ohio

Spouse(s)
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Yeardley Smith

Yeardley Smith on a panel at Comic Con in San Diego for The Simpsons.
Birth name Martha Maria Yeardley Smith
Born July 3 1964 (1964--)
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The Simpsons shorts is a series of one-minute shorts that ran on the variety show The Tracey Ullman Show for three seasons, before the characters spun off into their own half-hour prime time show called The Simpsons.
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The Simpsons is an animated American sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. It is a soft-satirical parody of the "Middle American" lifestyle epitomized by its title family, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie.
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An animated cartoon is a short, hand-drawn (or made with computers to look similar to something hand-drawn) film for the cinema, television or computer screen, featuring some kind of story or plot (even if it is a very short one).
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In broadcasting, a commercial bumper, ident bumper or break bumper (often shortened to bump) is a brief (usually two to fifteen seconds) transition announcement, placed between a pause in the program and its commercial break (and also the other way around).
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Matthew Abram Groening (born February 15, 1954[1] in Portland, Oregon;[2] his family name is pronounced 'greɪnɪŋ', rhymes with raining
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