iPedia Free Information Center

Information about Peanut Gallery

A peanut gallery is an audience which heckles the performer. The term originated in the days of vaudeville as a nickname for the cheapest (and therefore rowdiest) seats in the theater; the cheapest snack served at the theater would often be peanuts, which the patrons would sometimes throw at the performers on stage to signify their disapproval.

In the 1950s, the Howdy Doody show adopted the name to represent their audience of 40 kids.

Related terms

  • Similar seats in British theatres are often called "the gods" because of the seats' higher elevation (eg 'We've got seats in the gods for the play tonight').
  • Similar seats in French theatres were called "Le Paradis" (from which came the title of the movie "Les Enfants du Paradis") because of the seats' higher elevation. Another common name was "Le Poulailler" (the Hen house) because the population of the section was very noisy.
  • In the US and Canada, especially at sporting events and concerts, the more elevated seats are often referred to as "The Nosebleeds", alluding to the altitude.
  • During the Jim Crow era and in segregated parts of the United States, "Nigger Heaven" was often used to refer to the balcony of a movie theater where blacks sat.
  • The Peanut Gallery also refers to an old racial slur in reference to the Puerto Rican population in the United States.
  • The orange-colored seats in the upper decks of Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh were often referred to by local patrons as "Peanut Heaven."

External links

For other uses, see Vaudeville (disambiguation).


Vaudeville was a genre of variety entertainment prevalent in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s.
..... Click the link for more information.
A. hypogaea

Binomial name
Arachis hypogaea
L.

This article is about the legume. For the comic strip, see Peanuts. For other uses, see Peanut (disambiguation).

..... Click the link for more information.
Howdy Doody was a children's television program (with a decidedly frontier/western theme, although other themes also colored the show) that aired on NBC in the United States from 1947 until 1960.
..... Click the link for more information.
The gods is a theatrical term, common in Britain especially, referring to the highest areas of a theatre such as the balconies. These are generally the cheapest seats.

There are references to the "gods" in many plays and films.
..... Click the link for more information.
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile
This article is about the film. For the psychedelic trance group, see Children of Paradise (band).

..... Click the link for more information.
nosebleed section is applied tongue-in-cheek to those seats of a public arena, usually an athletic stadium or gymnasium, that are highest and, usually, farthest from the desired activity.
..... Click the link for more information.
Discrimination

Major forms
Racism
Sexism
Homophobia
Ageism
Antisemitism
Islamophobia
Ableism

Manifestations
Slavery · Racial profiling
Hate speech · Hate crime
Genocide · Ethnocide · Holocaust
..... Click the link for more information.
Nigger Heaven (1926) is a book by Carl Van Vechten (1880-1964) set during the Harlem Renaissance in the United States in the 1920s. The book and its title have been controversial since its publication. The title, however, refers to the balconies of movie theaters.
..... Click the link for more information.
movie theater (North America), also known as a cinema (Australia, United Kingdom and Ireland, as well as North America), a movie house, or the pictures, is a venue, usually a building, for viewing motion pictures ("movies" or "films").
..... Click the link for more information.
Puerto Rican
Puertorriqueño

Notable Puerto Ricans:
Ricky Martín  • Luis Muñoz Rivera  • Benicio del Toro

..... Click the link for more information.
Motto
"In God We Trust"   (since 1956)
"E Pluribus Unum"   ("From Many, One"; Latin, traditional)
Anthem
..... Click the link for more information.
Three Rivers Stadium was a multi-purpose sports stadium and event facility located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania from 1970 through 2000.

The stadium's name was derived from the junction of the Monongahela and Allegheny rivers, where they formed the Ohio River, the "Golden
..... Click the link for more information.
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Flag
Seal
Nickname: City of Bridges, Steel City, City of Champions, The 'Burgh, Iron City, Steel Town, The College City, Roboburgh
..... Click the link for more information.


This article is copied from an article on Wikipedia.org - the free encyclopedia created and edited by online user community. The text was not checked or edited by anyone on our staff. Although the vast majority of the wikipedia encyclopedia articles provide accurate and timely information please do not assume the accuracy of any particular article. This article is distributed under the terms of GNU Free Documentation License.
Herod_Archelaus


page counter