Gary Edward "Garrison" Keillor is an American author, singer, humorist, voice actor, and radio personality. He created the Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) show A Prairie Home Companion, which he hosted from 1974 to 2016. Keillor created the fictional Minnesota town Lake Wobegon, the setting of many of his books, including Lake Wobegon Days and Leaving Home: A Collection of Lake Wobegon Stories. Other creations include Guy Noir, a detective voiced by Keillor who appeared in A Prairie Home Companion comic skits. Keillor is also the creator of the five-minute daily radio/podcast program The Writer's Almanac, which pairs poems of his choice with a script about important literary, historical, and scientific events that coincided with that date in history.
A Prairie Home Companion is a weekly radio variety show created and hosted by Garrison Keillor that aired live from 1974 to 2016. In 2016, musician Chris Thile took over as host, and the successor show was eventually renamed Live from Here and ran until 2020. A Prairie Home Companion aired on Saturdays from the Fitzgerald Theater in Saint Paul, Minnesota; it was also frequently heard on tours to New York City and other U.S. cities. The show is known for its musical guests, especially folk and traditional musicians, tongue-in-cheek radio drama, and relaxed humor. Keillor's wry storytelling segment, "News from Lake Wobegon," was the show's best-known feature during his long tenure.
Radio comedy, or comedic radio programming, is a radio broadcast that may involve variety show, sitcom elements, sketches, and various types of comedy found in other media. It may also include more surreal or fantastic elements, as these can be conveyed on a small budget with just a few sound effects or some simple dialogue. Radio comedy began in the United States in 1930, based on the fact that as most United Kingdom music hall comedians such as Charlie Chaplin and Stan Laurel progressed to silent films, they moved to Hollywood and fed the radio comedy field. Another British music hall comic, George Formby, stayed in the British movie industry, and in 1940 joined the Entertainments National Service Association to entertain British World War II troops. UK radio comedy therefore started later, in the 1950s.
Minnesota nice is a cultural stereotype applied to the behavior of people from Minnesota, implying residents are unusually courteous, reserved, and mild-mannered compared to people from other states and more akin to their Canadian neighbors in Northern Ontario. The phrase also implies polite friendliness, an aversion to open confrontation, a tendency toward understatement, a disinclination to make a direct fuss or stand out, apparent emotional restraint, and self-deprecation. It is sometimes associated with passive-aggression.
A hotdish or hot dish is a casserole dish that typically contains a starch, a meat, and a canned or frozen vegetable mixed with canned soup. The dish originates in the Upper Midwest region of the United States, where it remains popular, particularly in Minnesota, South Dakota, Wisconsin, North Dakota, and eastern Montana. Hotdish is cooked in a single baking dish, and served hot. It commonly appears at communal gatherings such as family reunions, potlucks, and church suppers. A classic example known as "tater tot hotdish" is made with ground beef, topped with tater tots, and flavored with thick, condensed cream of mushroom soup sauce.
Uff da is an American Scandinavian exclamation or interjection used to express dismay, typically upon hearing bad news. Of Norwegian origin, the phrase was brought by Scandinavian Americans to the Upper Midwest, New England, and Pacific Northwest regions of the United States during the 19th century, where its meaning was broadened to express also surprise, astonishment, exhaustion, or relief.
Frederick R. Newman is an American actor, comedian, composer, sound effects artist both in person and for film, and former talk show host. Newman is known for his ability to make ‘mouthsounds’ and is not a traditional Foley artist.
A Prairie Home Companion is a 2006 American musical comedy film directed by Robert Altman and is his final film. It is a fictional representation of behind-the-scenes activities at the long-running public radio show of the same name. The film received mostly positive reviews and was a moderate box-office success on a small budget. The film features an ensemble cast including Woody Harrelson, Tommy Lee Jones, Garrison Keillor, Kevin Kline, Lindsay Lohan, Virginia Madsen, John C. Reilly, Maya Rudolph, Meryl Streep, and Lily Tomlin.
Guy Noir is a fictional private detective regularly featured on the public radio show A Prairie Home Companion. Voiced by Garrison Keillor, the character parodies the conventions of hardboiled fiction and the film noir genre. Guy Noir works on the twelfth floor of the Acme Building in a city that "knows how to keep its secrets", St. Paul, Minnesota.
Jessica Nordell is an American writer, science journalist, and author.
Noah Adams is an American broadcast journalist and author, known primarily since 1987 from National Public Radio.
Red River Radio is a regional public radio network for northwest Louisiana, southern Arkansas, eastern Texas, and the southeasternmost corner of Oklahoma, serving communities in the valley of the Red River of the South through five radio stations. The network is headquartered in Shreveport, Louisiana, on the campus of Louisiana State University Shreveport.
Lake Wobegon is a fictional town created by Garrison Keillor as the setting of the recurring segment "News from Lake Wobegon" for the radio program A Prairie Home Companion broadcast from St Paul, Minnesota. The fictional town serves as the setting for many of Keillor's stories and novels, gaining an international audience with Lake Wobegon Days in 1985. Described as a small rural town in central Minnesota, the events and adventures of the townspeople provided Keillor with a wealth of humorous and often touching stories.
The culture of Minnesota is a subculture of the United States with influences from Scandinavian Americans, Finnish Americans, Irish Americans, German Americans, Native Americans, Czechoslovak Americans, among numerous other immigrant groups. They work in the context of the cold agricultural and mining state.
The Jon Hassler Theater was a professional live theater located in Plainview, Minnesota. In November 2013 it was announced that the Hassler would be closing at the end of 2014.
The Prairie Fire Organizing Committee is an American far left organization that evolved from the Weather Underground.
A Norwegian Minnesotan is a Norwegian American in the U.S. state of Minnesota. As of 2009, 868,361 Minnesotans claim Norwegian ancestry — equivalent to 16.5% of Minnesota's population and 18.7% of the total Norwegian American population.
The Personals is a 1982 romantic comedy written and directed by Peter Markle. It was shot in Minneapolis. The film was picked up for distribution by Roger Corman's New World Pictures.
Ken LaZebnik is an American writer, best known for his work in television, film, and theatre. His work has appeared in films such as A Prairie Home Companion and in television shows Touched by an Angel and Star Trek: Enterprise. LaZebnik's screenplay On the Spectrum earned him a Steinberg Award from the American Theatre Critics Association.
A pancake feed is an all-you-can-eat breakfast of pancakes popular in some United States locales including Minnesota and Nebraska. A record pancake feed serving over 38,000 people occurred in Fargo, North Dakota on February 9, 2008. American civic groups and amateur sports teams have traditionally used pancake feeds as fundraisers. In Seattle, they are associated with Swedish American and Norwegian American cultural societies and clubs. The Kiwanis pancake feed in Lincoln, Nebraska has been held continuously since the 1950s.
