Tag: origin

‘Peanut Gallery’ The Complicated Origin Of The Expression
CELEBRITY NEWS

‘Peanut Gallery’ The Complicated Origin Of The Expression

“No comments from the peanut gallery!” For many Americans who were born in the 1940s or 1950s, this phrase conjures up fond memories of the “Howdy Doody” show. It launched in 1947 as one of the first children’s television programs. Children in the live audience of ‘Howdy Doody’ were seated in what was known as the peanut gallery. NBC Television via wikimedia.org On that show, Buffalo Bob Smith – the host – his marionette sidekick, Howdy Doody, and Clarabell the clown entertained children who sat in bleachers onstage. Each episode opened with the kids singing the “It’s Howdy Doody Time” theme song and were then filmed reacting to the performers’ antics. Buffalo Bob referred to them as the “peanut gallery,” but the term didn’t originate with his show. In fact, “peanut gallery” predates How...
The Origin Of The Cult
IMPACT

The Origin Of The Cult

Mathew Schmalz, College of the Holy Cross The word “cult” is used a lot nowadays. Former President Donald Trump has been likened to a cult leader. Democratic California congresswoman Jackie Speier recently compared Trump to Jim Jones, the infamous leader of Peoples Temple, an American religious group of which nearly 1,000 members died by mass murder-suicide in Guyana in 1978. A congressional staffer at the time, Speier was seriously wounded by temple members during an ambush that killed Congressman Leo Ryan of San Francisco. Then there’s NXIVM, a “sex cult” based in Albany, New York. Media reports and evidence at trial revealed that NXIVM’s female members recruited “slaves,” who were branded with the initials of the group’s leader, Keith Raniere. Raniere, also called the “Vanguard,” was...