Fast Times is an American sitcom based on the 1982 film Fast Times at Ridgemont High that was produced by Amy Heckerling , who directed the original movie. The series ran for 7 episodes on CBS from March 5 until April 23, 1986. Cameron Crowe , who wrote the original Fast Times novel and film screenplay, served as creative consultant. Moon Zappa was hired to research slang terms and mannerisms of teenagers, as she had recently graduated from high school and had a much better grasp of then-current high school behavior than the series writers. Oingo Boingo provided the theme song . Ray Walston as Mr. Hand and Vincent Schiavelli as Mr. Vargas, were the only actors from the film to reprise their roles for the TV series.
33-632: Jeff Borden of The Charlotte Observer observed the series' biggest downfall: "The challenge 'Fast Times' faces is emphasizing the comedic elements from the R-rated film while soft-pedaling the teen lust aspects that were a major part of the movie. Comic characters like spaced-out surfer Jeff Spicoli fare well, while subtle characters like fast-food king and would-be ladies man Brad Hamilton are sanitized into blandness." Christopher Cornell, writing in The Philadelphia Inquirer , echoed
66-679: A Knight newspaper. The minority stake in WAKR's parent company, Summit Radio, also included the establishment of WAKR-TV (channel 49) , as well as WAKR-FM (97.5) and six radio stations purchased in Dayton, Ohio , Dallas , Texas, and Denver , Colorado. WAKR-TV was built and signed on by Summit on July 23, 1953, as the Akron market's ABC affiliate, moving to channel 23 on December 1, 1967. Knight Ridder divested its stake in Summit Radio by 1977;
99-705: A brief time, the combined company was the largest newspaper publisher in the United States. Knight Ridder had a long history of innovation in technology . It was the first newspaper publisher to experiment with videotex when it launched its Viewtron system in 1983. After investing six years of research and $ 50 million into the service, Knight Ridder shut down Viewtron in 1986 when the service's interactivity features proved more popular than news delivery. Knight-Ridder purchased Dialog Information Services Inc. from Lockheed Corporation in August 1988. In October 1988,
132-477: A corresponding syndicated feature, That's Racin' . The Charlotte Observer also operates a food, drink and lifestyle vertical called CharlotteFive . The paper's television partner is WBTV . The Observer offices also include editors and designers that makeup the McClatchy NewsDesk-East , which is responsible for the production of The Charlotte Observer and McClatchy newspapers from across
165-520: A planned merger between the two entities in 1968 failed to be consummated. In 1954, Ridder Newspapers launched WDSM-TV in Superior , Wisconsin , serving the Duluth , Minnesota market. Initially a CBS affiliate, it switched to its present NBC affiliation a year and a half after the station's launch. It was spun off after Ridder's merger with Knight Newspapers, Inc. From 1956 to 1962, Knight and
198-520: A purchase price of $ 6.5 billion in cash, stock and debt. The deal gave McClatchy 32 daily newspapers in 29 markets, with a total circulation of 3.3 million. However, for various reasons, McClatchy decided immediately to resell twelve of these papers. On April 26, 2006, McClatchy announced it was selling the San Jose Mercury News , Contra Costa Times , Monterey Herald , and St. Paul Pioneer Press to MediaNews Group (with backing from
231-550: A sister publication of the state's largest paper, The News & Observer of Raleigh ; and of The Herald of Rock Hill, the primary newspaper for the South Carolina side of the metro area. As of spring 2008, it is the fifth-largest newspaper in the McClatchy chain (behind The Kansas City Star , Miami Herald , Sacramento Bee and Fort Worth Star-Telegram ). McClatchy's share value has been in decline since
264-604: Is an American newspaper serving Charlotte, North Carolina , and its metro area . The Observer was founded in 1886. As of 2020, it has the second-largest circulation of any newspaper in the Carolinas. It is owned by Chatham Asset Management . The Observer primarily serves Charlotte and Mecklenburg County and the surrounding counties of Iredell , Cabarrus , Union , Lancaster , York , Gaston , Catawba , and Lincoln . Home delivery service in outlying counties has declined in recent years, with delivery times growing later as
297-428: Is higher outside Mecklenburg & adjacent counties/states. As of 2020, an annual digital subscription is $ 15.99 per month. [REDACTED] Media related to The Charlotte Observer at Wikimedia Commons 35°13′15″N 80°50′36″W / 35.220831°N 80.843422°W / 35.220831; -80.843422 ( Charlotte Observere ) Knight Ridder Knight Ridder / ˈ r ɪ d ər /
330-610: The Cox publishing family jointly operated Biscayne Television, which owned NBC affiliate WCKT in Miami, Florida , as well as WCKR radio , which this entity purchased from Cox; Knight sold off WQAM to a third party as part of Biscayne's formation. Revelations of improper behavior and underhanded tactics by Biscayne and National Airlines (which signed on WPST-TV , also in Miami ) to secure their licenses, along with ethics violations within
363-617: The Hearst Corporation ) for $ 1 billion. Daily newspapers owned by Knight Ridder and its predecessors – listed alphabetically by place of publication – included: A list of companies that were at one time or another owned by Knight Ridder: Knight Newspapers entered broadcasting in 1946 via the purchase of minority ownership stakes in WQAM in Miami, WIND in Chicago, and WAKR in Akron; all three stations were in markets served by
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#1732771877743396-526: The Observer made the Saturday edition digital only. In July 2024, the newspaper announced it will decrease the number of print editions to three a week: Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. The paper will also be delivered by the postal service instead of by carrier. The Charlotte Observer has won five Pulitzer Prizes : The Charlotte Observer prices are: daily, $ 2 and Sunday/Thanksgiving Day, $ 3. Price
429-605: The FCC itself, resulted in the licenses for both stations being revoked. A replacement license for WCKT was granted in 1960 to Sunbeam Television , the lone bidder for the prior license not to have engaged in any unethical behavior; Biscayne sold to Sunbeam WCKT's non-license assets: the studios, intellectual property and all off- and on-air personnel for the new station, which took the WCKT name for continuity. Cox repurchased WCKR, reviving that station's prior WIOD call sign. Following
462-543: The Knight Ridder chain (behind The Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News , Detroit Free Press and Miami Herald ). In 1959, The Observer purchased The Charlotte News , Charlotte's afternoon newspaper. All operations were merged except editorial content, which was fused in 1983. The Observer ended circulation of the afternoon News in 1985. McClatchy purchased most of Knight Ridder's newspapers, including The Observer , in 2006. This made The Observer
495-651: The Knight-Ridder chain refusing to run the two reporters' stories. After the war and the discrediting of many initial news reports written and carried by others, Strobel and Landay received the Raymond Clapper Memorial Award from the Senate Press Gallery on February 5, 2004, for their coverage. The Huffington Post headlined the two as "the reporting team that got Iraq right". The Columbia Journalism Review described
528-548: The company placed its eight broadcast television stations up for sale to reduce debt and to pay for the purchase of Dialog. In 1997, when Tony Ridder was CEO, it bought four newspapers from The Walt Disney Company formerly owned by Capital Cities Communications , after Disney's purchase of Cap Cities mainly for the ABC television network ( The Kansas City Star , Fort Worth Star-Telegram , Belleville News-Democrat and (Wilkes-Barre) Times Leader for $ 1.65 billion. It was, at
561-716: The divestment of their stake in Summit Radio, Knight Ridder acquired Poole Broadcasting, which consisted of WJRT-TV in Flint , Michigan , WTEN in Albany , New York and its satellite WCDC in Adams , Massachusetts , and WPRI-TV in Providence , Rhode Island . Immediately after the acquisition of these stations was finalized, Knight Ridder cut a corporate affiliation deal with ABC, switching then-CBS affiliates WTEN/WCDC and WPRI (the latter of which eventually rejoined CBS) to ABC (WJRT
594-702: The network programmers turned the hour over to repeated tests by the Emergency Broadcast System . It would be better, and considerably more entertaining, if they devoted the hour to a reading of the Newark Yellow Pages . It would be better, and far more merciful, if they just went dark. Just about anything would be kinder than subjecting even a few stray viewers to this video swill. Indeed, Tough Cookies and Fast Times make Stir Crazy look like television's answer to Ulysses." The Charlotte Observer The Charlotte Observer
627-426: The paper has outsourced circulation services outside the primary Charlotte area. Circulation at The Charlotte Observer has been declining for many years. The period of May 2011 showed that Charlotte Observer circulation totaled 155,497 daily and 212,318 Sunday. 2017 Print Circulation Daily: 69,987 and Sunday: 106,434. The newspaper has an online presence and its staff also oversees a NASCAR news website, and
660-571: The purchase. The stock has lost over 95% of its value, far worse than many remaining newspaper companies. On February 13, 2020, The McClatchy Company and 54 affiliated companies filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York . The company cited pension obligations and excessive debt as the primary reasons for the filing. On March 7, 2020,
693-458: The region. From 1927 to 2016, The Charlotte Observer was headquartered at 600 South Tryon Street. The facility included editorial offices, management offices, advertising offices, production, plus a large printing facility with a tunnel and underground railway system to feed paper to the presses. In 2016, the editorial offices moved to the NASCAR building on South Caldwell Street. The old facility
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#1732771877743726-822: The reporting as "unequaled by the Bigfoots working at higher-visibility outlets such as the New York Times , the Washington Post , the Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times ". Later after the war, their work was featured in Bill Moyers ' PBS documentary "Buying The War" and was dramatized in the 2017 film Shock and Awe . On March 13, 2006, The McClatchy Company announced its agreement to purchase Knight Ridder for
759-424: The rest of Silicon Valley. The internet division had been established there three years earlier. The company rented several floors in a downtown high-rise as its new corporate base. In November 2005, the company announced plans for "strategic initiatives," which involved the possible sale of the company. This came after three major institutional shareholders publicly urged management to put the company up for sale. At
792-454: The sentiment: "People who liked the movie (read: teenagers) will tune in expecting something like what they saw in the theater. But the network is going to have to completely eliminate the movie's cheerfully rampant drug use and tone down the lusty sexual content, so that parents won't be uncomfortable." However, Borden calls Fast Times "the hippest look at high school life since the late, lamented Square Pegs few seasons back, yet it treats
825-671: The teachers with compassion and respect. An 'us vs. them' mentality is avoided." Mike Duffy of the Detroit Press disagreed entirely, saying "With 'Fast Times,' we have 'Dull Pegs'." Mark Dawidziak of the Akron Beacon Journal was far less than kind to the sitcom: "Just when you thought the CBS Wednesday schedule couldn't get any worse, along comes these two lethal stinkers ( Fast Times and another series that preceded it, Tough Cookies ). It would be better if
858-595: The time, the company had a higher profit margin than many Fortune 500 companies, including ExxonMobil . In the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq , Knight Ridder DC Bureau reporters Jonathan Landay and Warren Strobel wrote a series of articles critical of purported intelligence suggesting links between Saddam Hussein , the obtainment of weapons of mass destruction , and Al-Qaeda , citing anonymous sources. Landay and Strobel's stories ran counter to reports by The New York Times , The Washington Post and other national publications, resulting in some newspapers within
891-461: The time, the most expensive newspaper acquisition in history. For most of its existence, the company was based in Miami, with headquarters on the top floor of the Miami Herald building. In 1998, Knight Ridder relocated its headquarters from Miami to San Jose, Calif.; there, that city's Mercury News —the first daily newspaper to regularly publish its full content online—was booming along with
924-843: Was already affiliated with ABC when the affiliation deal was made). As part of the deal, Poole Broadcasting would eventually become Knight Ridder Broadcasting. Knight Ridder would acquire several television stations in medium-sized markets during the 1980s, including three stations owned by The Detroit News which the Gannett Company —which purchased the newspaper in 1986—could not keep due to Federal Communications Commission regulations on media cross-ownership and/or television duopolies then in effect. (None of Knight Ridder's later acquisitions changed their network affiliations under Knight Ridder ownership; for example, then-NBC affiliate WALA-TV in Mobile , Alabama remained an NBC affiliate when it
957-480: Was an American media company, specializing in newspaper and Internet publishing . Until it was bought by McClatchy on June 27, 2006, it was the second largest newspaper publisher in the United States, with 32 daily newspaper brands sold. Its headquarters were located in San Jose , California . The corporate ancestors of Knight Ridder were Knight Newspapers, Inc. and Ridder Publications, Inc. The first company
990-567: Was demolished and redeveloped into office space. The paper was founded in 1886 as the Charlotte Chronicle. The Chronicle was sold to Joseph Caldwell in 1892, and began appearing as the Charlotte Daily Observer on March 13, 1892. It was purchased by Knight Newspapers in 1955. Knight merged with Ridder Publications to form Knight Ridder in 1974. The Observer eventually became the fourth-largest newspaper in
1023-453: Was followed by the following month with the sale of KTVY-TV to WHO-TV owner Palmer Communications, for $ 50 million. WTEN was the next-to-last station to be sold, going to Young Broadcasting for $ 38 million, and WJRT would eventually becoming the final Knight Ridder station, to be sold to SJL Broadcasting for $ 39 million. • Shock and Awe , 2018 film about a group of journalists at Knight Ridder's Washington Bureau who investigate
Fast Times - Misplaced Pages Continue
1056-607: Was founded by John S. Knight upon inheriting control of the Akron Beacon Journal from his father, Charles Landon Knight , in 1933; the second company was founded by Herman Ridder when he acquired the New Yorker Staats-Zeitung , a German language newspaper, in 1892. As anti-German sentiment increased in the interwar period , Ridder successfully transitioned into English language publishing by acquiring The Journal of Commerce in 1926. Both companies went public in 1969 and merged on July 11, 1974. For
1089-705: Was owned by Knight Ridder and would switch to Fox several years after Knight Ridder sold the station.) In early 1989, Knight Ridder announced its exit from broadcasting, selling all of its stations to separate buyers; the sales were finalized in the summer and early fall of that year. This deal was made in order to reduce their debt loads from the proceedings. One of the stations, WALA-TV went to Burnham Broadcasting for $ 40 million, while WKRN would go to Young Broadcasting for $ 50 million, KOLD-TV to News-Press & Gazette Company for an undisclosed price, and two television stations WPRI and WTKR to Narragansett Television L.P. for $ 150 million on February 18, 1989. This
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