Jordan Maxwell - Stephen King - Ken Dodd - Orson Welles - Black Mirror TV - T S Eliot - George Carlin - Anton Chekhov - Frank Zappa - Kurt Cobain - John Waters - David Frost - Ripley: Believe It Or Not TV - Robert Tressell - Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life 1983 - Storyville: United Skates TV - Chris Hedges - Roy Hudd - Enzo Ferrari - History's Greatest Myths TV -
The bottom line is that the government is getting what they have ordered. They do not want your children to be educated. They do not want you to think too much. That is why our country and our world has become so proliferated with entertainments, mass media, television shows, amusement parks, drugs, alcohol and every kind of entertainment to keep the human mind entertained, so that you don’t get in the way of important people by doing too much thinking. You had better wake up and understand that there are people who are guiding your life and you don’t even know it. Jordan Maxwell, Matrix of Power
Books are the perfect entertainment: no commercials, no batteries, hours of enjoyment for each dollar spent. What I wonder is why everybody doesn’t carry a book around for those inevitable dead spots in life. Stephen King
What a show we’ve got lined up for you tonight, ladies and gentlemen. Oh, tonight we’ve got artists from all four corners of the job centre. Ken Dodd
Any form of entertainment only exists because it corresponds to a moment in time. Orson Welles, interview The Parkinson Show 1973
New from Wraith Babes: the hottest girls in the nastiest situations. Select View. Black Mirror 2/3: Fifteen Million Merits, Channel 4 2011
I love choosing my own clothes. And I love gold. I feel like it really expresses who I really am. ibid. celebrity hotshot
We medicate against that. You will have pleasure for ever. ibid. Wraith on judging panel
We’re so out of our minds with desperation we don’t know any better. All we know is fate, fodder and buying shit. ibid.
You came across as fundamentally unlikable and really quite worthless. ibid.
Television is a medium of entertainment which permits millions of people to listen to the same joke at the same time, and yet remain lonesome. T S Eliot
I read that Monica Seles got stabbed. And although I have nothing against Monica Seles, I’m glad somebody in sports got stabbed. I like the idea of it; it’s good entertainment. If we’re lucky, it’ll spread through sports. And show business, too! Wouldn’t you like to see a guy jump up on stage and stab some famous singer? Especially a real shitty pop singer? Maybe they’ll even start stabbing comedians. Fuck it, I’m ready! I never perform without my can of mace. I have a switchblade knife too. I’ll cut your eye out and go right on telling jokes. George Carlin, Brain Droppings
People who see life as anything more than pure entertainment are missing the point. George Carlin, When Will Jesus Bring The Pork Chops?
Borkin: Ladies and gentlemen, why are you so glum? Sitting there like a jury after it’s been sworn in! ... Let’s think up something. What would you like? Forfeits, tug of war, catch, dancing, fireworks? Anton Chekhov, Ivanov
Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. Frank Zappa
That’s what music is – entertainment. The more you put yourself into it, the more of you comes out in it. Kurt Cobain
To me, bad taste is what entertainment is all about. John Waters
Television is an invention that permits you to be entertained in your living room by people you wouldn’t have in your home. David Frost
‘Believe it or not – Rob Ripley!’ Ripley's Believe It or Not! Ripley on stage and radio, PBS 2015
The Fireproof Man From Kansas. Dr W A Mayfield. ibid. caption
The Man With The Revolving Head – He can see his own spine. Joe Laurello. ibid. caption
The popular multi-media brand that for two decades had mesmorised the nation. ibid. commentary
The ‘Pandorama’ consisted of a stage-front made of painted cardboard and fixed on the gront of a wooden box about three feet long by two feet six inches high, and about one foot deep from back to front. The ‘Show’ was a lot of pictures cut out of illustrated weekly papers and pasted together, end to end, so as to form a long strip or ribbon. Bert had coloured all the pictures with water-colours.
Just behind the wings of the stage-front at each end of the box – was an upright roller, and the long strip of pictures was rolled up on this ... ‘Our next picture is called ‘An Englishman's ome’. ’Ere we see the inside of another room in Slumtown, with the father and mother and four children sitting down to dinner – bread and drippin’ and tea. It says underneath the pitcher that there’s Thirteen millions of people in England always on the verge of starvation.’ Robert Tressell, The Ragged Trouserered Philanthropist
‘Here we see another unemployment procession’ continued Bert as he rolled another picture into sight; ‘2,000 able-bodied who are not allowed to work ... ’Ere we see a lot of small boys about twelve and thirteen years old being served out with their Labour Stiffcats.’ ibid.
Father [to children]: The mill’s closed. There’s no more work. We’re destitute. I’m afraid I have no choice but to sell you all for scientific experiments. Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life 1983 starring Graham Chapman & John Cleese & Terry Gilliam & Eric Idle & Terry Jones & Michael Palin & Carol Cleveland & Patricia Quinn & Judy Loe & Simon Jones & Matt Frewer & Jane Leeves et al, director Terry Jones
For many black people being on four wheels is like black-eyed peas and greens on New Year’s Eve. Storyville: United Skates, fan, BBC 2020
I’m considered a rink rat – you know, you’re born and raised in the rink. So now my kids got the same thing. ibid. single mum
Skating rinks held 2,000 and 3,000 people. So they were the first big arenas for rappers to perform in. ibid. Vin Rock
It’s the end of an era. After more than a decade the last indoor roller rink in our area is holding its final lace-up tonight. ibid. 1980s news report
In the state of Illinois we are the last two African-American owned and operated roller-skating rinks. ibid. owner
The more communities break down and poverty expands, the more anxious and frightened people will retreat into self-delusion. Those who speak the truth – whether about climate change or our system of inverted totalitarianism – will be branded as seditious and unpatriotic. They will be hated for destroying the illusion. This, as Gabler noted, is the danger of a society dominated by entertainment. Such a society, he wrote, ‘… took dead aim at the intellectuals’ most cherished values’. That theme was the triumph of the senses over the mind, of emotion over reason, of chaos over order, or the id over the superego … Entertainment was Plato’s worst nightmare. It deposed the rational and enthroned the sensational and in so doing deposed the intellectual minority and enthroned the unrefined majority. Chris Hedges, The Illusion of Freedom, 2015
In 1870 there were three hundred music halls in London alone. Roy Hudd
A man has no need of entertainment. Entertainment only distracts from his duty. Enzo Ferrari, cited Ferrari: Race to Immortality, Sky 2017
Popular culture is a defining feature of our daily lives. It’s the television we watch. The music we listen to, the films we see and the games we play. This saturation can easily turn into obsession, distrust and even fear. History’s Greatest Myths s1e2: Entertainment
Myths as outlandish as the entertainment we consume begin to spread. These are the great myths in entertainment history. ibid.
At the centre of the furore was Orson Welles … A radio play that would sound like a real news report … Each news break would further the fictional story of a horrifying Martian invasion. ibid.