Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2008 December 31

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December 31

What do fired coaches do?

Today it was Mike Shanahan! In today's economy it is most definately a real tragedy. There are too many coaches to name here. In today's dreadful economy what's a fired coach to do?Baseball and and and Popcorn Fanatic (talk) 00:19, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Are you honestly sad for him? He has a monstrous house in Denver that is completely paid for. He has millions of dollars in the bank and is expected to receive $30 million in a release from his contract. On top of that, he is still apparently owed $250k from the Raiders. He has enough to never work again if he doesn't want to. If he does want to, it will be easy for him to find a job. -- kainaw™ 00:26, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

He was just the one fired today, so he was fresh in my mind. I just think he deserves a little respect.Baseball and and and Popcorn Fanatic (talk) 00:31, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Your question simply doesn't make much sense. You state that the economy is a real tragedy and ask what a fired coach can do in the economy. I pointed out that at his income level, the economy status is not a factor. He has a house. He has multiple cars. He has plenty of money already and plenty more on the way. Other coaches are in a similar state. When they are "fired", the contract is paid out. They receive millions of dollars. They are not suddenly kicked out on the streets with no home and no money. It is not a matter of respect. NFL coaches are rich and can easily handle many years of unemployment. You can feel sorry about the way they are treated, but feeling sorry about how they can handle the economy makes no sense. -- kainaw™ 00:38, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't think that people whose annual salary runs to 7 figures are going to have much of a problem in the current economy. Mike Shanahan has made more cash in his 15+ years as head coach than I will ever make in my entire lifetime. If he has financial problems, he has no one to blame but himself; he can't claim that being fired has put him in any financial danger by itself. And if he wants it (he certainly doesn't need it) he'll get another job. He's been fired before (from the Raiders) and survived; he'll do what most of these coaches do. He'll become a comemntator at ESPN or FOX or something for a year or two, then he'll get another head coaching job in the NFL. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 02:10, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

In response to the last question posted by the OP, the question of what a fired pro coach is to do, there aren't a lot of possibilities but there are some. Some jobs that a fired coach could go for would be to coach a university team, write for a newspaper or sports magazine, be a commentator for ESPN or some other network, or move to another pro team. Granted, there aren't as many jobs to chose from as, let's say, a mechanical/electrical/optical/etc engineer has available to them but there are places to go. Dismas|^(talk) 03:58, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

To respond to Dismas; assuming that the coach merely wanted to remain in coaching, there are actually thousands of coaching jobs at all levels of football. Considering that even many high school teams have a head coach and several assisstant coaches, he could conceivably have MANY opportunities for employment fairly quickly. He may want to hold out for the right job (likely in broadcasting or as a head coach or coordinator of a Pro or Div. IA college team), but if he just wanted to work, there are plenty of place that would hire him right now.--Jayron32.talk.contribs 21:50, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

This is WP:OR here but... I don't think a high school would be *that* enthusiastic about hiring him. Yeah, he's a big name and they'd get to pat themselves on the back for having John Doe as their head coach but they know they can't pay him anywhere near what he was making and he's very very over qualified. The school would have to wonder if he's taking the job just to have something to do or if he's actually committed to teaching football to a bunch of high school kids instead of training an already knowledgeable team of pro players. Then they have to look at the possibility of hiring him as an asst. coach. If they do that, it might like holding an axe over the head of the current head coach. Would you want to be the head coach if you knew that one of your asst coaches was some big name pro coach? You might be second guessing yourself or think that the school would soon be letting you go in preference to this other guy. So for a number of reasons, it's not a good move for a high school. A big name university would be a good fit for an ex-pro coach but not a high school, IMO. Dismas|^(talk) 22:07, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

One point to note is that when professional or high-level college coaches get fired, they are often in the middle of a contract term and the ownership or college hierarchy just wants a new coach in. The contract is still valid so the team or college must still pay the coach until the contract expires, or he/she signs on with another team, or takes another job and absolves the team of the contract. There have been times (I wish I could think of one off-hand) where a team has been paying three or more coaches, most of whom aren't working for the team any longer. — Michael J 23:47, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Has anyone ever run the bases backwards?

We've all seen the wrong way touchdown or two over the years. But seriously, has anyone ran to third base after hitting it out of the park? What then? I almost did it myself a few times. Now I'm no pro, but sometimes there is that moment of "Which way?" Did anyone ever turn against thier coach, umpire and teammates and on purpose just cut across to second? Or bust a beer bottle, run into the stands, and cut a fan?Baseball and and and Popcorn Fanatic (talk) 00:29, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

The closest you'll find in MLB is Jimmy Piersall. He ran them in the correct order, but was facing backwards as he ran. I believe that he said he did it just to get his name in the papers. -- kainaw™ 00:41, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

The rules state clearly that you have to run the bases in order. If the ball is in play, it simply needs to be thrown to first base for the batter to be out while he's running all out for third base. In the case of a home run, the balll is dead, so the defense would need to make an appeal play before the next pitch. The batter could correct his mistake by fully retracing his steps, retouching in reverse order every base he has touched, and then running the bases in the correct order. However, if he passes any other runner during that process, he would be automatically out. This retracing of steps would only be allowed to happen if the umpire considered that the base runner was genuinely confused; he is allowed to call out a runner for "making a mockery of the game", and in most cases things wouldn't end there - an ejection, a suspension and a fine would likely follow. Here's a link to the relevant section of the MLB rules (7.02) [1]. You can also read this article. --Xuxl (talk) 15:18, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

p.s. regarding Jimmy Piersall, he pulled his stunt to celebrate his 100th lifetime home run. --Xuxl (talk) 15:20, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

p.p.s. You can also read about the famous case of Germany Schaefer stealing first base (after reaching second base) in 1911 (also here). --Xuxl (talk) 15:27, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Lynyrd Skynyrd

I know that Hughie Thomasson of The Outlaws and Ricky Medlocke of Blackfoot both played with Skynyrd, but were they ever in the group together? --Cubs Fan ^(Talk) 01:46, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

The article titled List of Lynyrd Skynyrd band members lists every member AND their tenure in the band. If you read it, you can answer your own question. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 02:05, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Guest Starring

Apart from Jesse McCartney, the Veronicas and the Jonas Brothers, what are the only singers and bands that have guest starred in a TV show in Disney Channel? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.244.14.189 (talk) 03:42, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

there are likely to be hundreds of musical acts which, over the course of the past 30 years or so, have appeared on the Disney Channel. It's a likely unmanagably large list of artists... --Jayron32.talk.contribs 03:44, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

I mean not starring in a TV show, I mean guest starring. I mean an actual TV show, not a movie, a break, a concert or the Disney World Christmas Parade, etc. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.244.14.189 (talk) 03:54, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

I really don't know, I don't watch Disney often, but probably yes, there would be an uncountable number of stars who guest starred on Disney (BTW, Happy New Year!) Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 15:30, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Actors and Singers

Apart from Corbin Bleu and Billy Ray Cyrus, what are the only male actors (especially child ones) who have starred in a TV show or movie in Disney Channel, who are also singers, but not part of a band right now, and have released a personal album? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.244.14.189 (talk) 03:48, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

...on the third tuesday of the month, but not when the moon is in its third quarter, and only if their mothers were named "Peggy", "Maud", or "Bertha", and only if they later appeared in drag on Haloween during the year of their 20th birthday, provided that year was not a leap year... --Jayron32.talk.contribs 03:09, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Garfield Movie Question

Renamed header to avoid conflict with another "Question" Astronaut (talk) 13:26, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

What's with Garfield Gets Real when there are already some live-action Garfield movies from the same company? 60.230.124.64 (talk) 06:58, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure what specifically you want to know, but the plot summary explains that Garfield is sick of being in comics so he escapes to the real world. Hence, "Garfield Gets Real." I haven't seen either of the life action movies, but I understand they are set entirely in the "real" world from the get-go and do not make reference to Garfield actually being a comic strip. Tomdobb (talk) 13:28, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Question 2

Why are characters sometimes voiced by people of the opposite sex? 60.230.124.64 (talk) 07:03, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Because they pick the person who best fits the 'voice' they are looking for. I suspect that it is at least in part because it is easier to hire an adult female who can sound like a young boy than it is to hire a young boy to do the voice-over. There'll be plenty of voice actors out there that have specialist ranges, and considering that they are only doing voice it makes no difference what sex they are provided they provide the voice the production are looking for. on a side-note traditionally in British Pantomime the dame is played by a male, and the (younger?) male lead is played by a female. 194.221.133.226 (talk) 09:56, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Also, if you want your show to run for more than a couple years, picking a boy to do a boy's voice would be a problem, as his voice is likely to change. You could then change to another voice actor, but people would notice the change. The classic case is that of Bart Simpson, whose voice has been done by Nancy Cartwright for 20 years now. If they used actual boys and changed them every 2 years, they'd be up to their 10th voice actor by now. Also note that this method isn't just limited to voice actors, women stage actors are sometimes used to play boys, too. For example, Peter Pan was played by many women, such as Mary Martin and Maude Adams. (Another approach used on TV, where you could tell if they were using women, is to use baby-faced short boys/men, so they don't outgrow the role. This has led to the careers of Michael J. Fox, Gary Coleman, Emmanuel Lewis, Jonathan Taylor Thomas, and Frankie Muniz, among others.) StuRat (talk) 15:19, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Cypress Hill

Is there any explanation as to why alot of Cypress Hill's songs have a short insturmental beat at the end of the song? 71.223.208.142 (talk) 20:22, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Because they like to do that? --Jayron32.talk.contribs 21:41, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

..okay....thought there was some reason, like, unused beats for songs or something. ?? 71.223.208.142 (talk) 22:38, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Er, what do you mean? They had some leftover beats so they had no choice but to stick them at the end of the song? I'm no musician, but I really don't think it works like that. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 23:49, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

ROFL. So, like, there's like these half-empty boxes of beats lying around, and they say "man, we don't want o waste these. Let's drop a few at the end of some songs." Nice... --Jayron32.talk.contribs 21:50, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

I'll go WAY out on a limb and suggest that it is a nod to other prospective musicians. I believe a lot of that industry came from borrowing a riff from another artist. See Amen break for the biggest example. By providing a couple seconds of instrumentals, they allow someone to easily sample it and make their own version. --Mdwyer (talk) 21:05, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Daft Punk

Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger. Are they distorting their own voices, because they sound very french and I know that DP happen to be french. To be more exact, listening to the "Faster, Stronger" part I hear the Rs being slurred a bit. "Strongerr".--Editor510 ^{drop us a line, mate} 21:14, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

According to our article, the credits do indeed say "vocals by Daft Punk". Which of the two it is, I don't know. Recury (talk) 03:13, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Difference between two songs

Is there any metric of the difference between two songs that can be used to objectively measure the breadth of a person's musical taste or the diversity of a genre or a particular band, without the out-group homogeneity bias of subjective ratings? NeonMerlin 22:00, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Music Genome Project may be of interest. --Nricardo (talk) 22:14, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

No.96.53.149.117 (talk) 08:16, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

This is obviously an entirely subjective area, but I always considered "Willingness to use time signatures other than 4:4" "Avoiding repeating patterns" "Avoiding formulaic 'verse-chorus, verse-chorus' arrangements" "Changing keys during a song (not just playing the same thing up a half-step!) or writing atonally" as examples of things that represented the breadth of musical talent (and the appreciation of them as indicating breadth of taste). NByz (talk) 07:24, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

I mean: No NByz (talk) 07:24, 2 January 2009 (UTC)