Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2016 July 18

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July 18

Movie question

Which movie had one of the characters say the following line: "A lead zeppelin is your stairway to Heaven"? 2601:646:8E01:7E0B:258A:F94:7EFA:6739 (talk) 02:04, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

Maybe you mean the TV series The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr., as documented here.

Might be! Thanks! 2601:646:8E01:7E0B:7D92:4B92:BDBC:ACFB (talk) 08:16, 22 July 2016 (UTC)

Tour de France potato chase

I'm just watching the Tour de France and the commentator used a French term for a chasing group that was chasing a breakaway from the pelaton but did not succeed in catching it and then got stuck between the breakaway and the pelaton. The commentator gave the phrase in English as potato chase. I did not quite catch the French phrase but I am sure it was not chasse de pomme de terre, or at least did not contain pomme de la terre, my understanding of French for potato. Anyone know what the French phrase is? SpinningSpark 14:01, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

According to this,[1] it's "chasse patate", which is a French idiom that would be better translated as "wild goose chase". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:28, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

Just as a side note, the difference between "patate" and "pomme de terre" is somewhat dialectical. In some dialects (especially lower-class dialects of Quebec French), patate is commonly used for any potatoes while "pomme de terre" is marked as somewhat snooty; in other dialects, especially Standard French (i.e. European or "International" French), "pomme de terre" is reserved for starchy potatoes such as Russet potato or creamer potato, while the word "patate" is used mainly for sweet potato varieties. This brief forum post (in English) and this longer explanation (in French) explains the peculiarities and history of the two terms. --Jayron32 16:16, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

I'm going to start using "potato chase" instead of "wild goose chase" thanks to this. clpo13_(talk) 16:42, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

Apart from its literal meaning "potato", patate can also mean "fool". The term comes from six-day racing. Dutch wikipedia has an article on it: nl:chasse patate (six-day racing is popular in Flanders). In short: a chasse patate is in six-day racing a low-speed episode in the race where the team that's far behind can easily chase around the track to gain extra laps, without becoming a threat to the leaders in the race. These low-speed episodes often came after a (potato) meal, as people race less fast with a full stomach. The meaning of "pointless chase" later transferred from track cycling to road cycling. PiusImpavidus (talk) 17:33, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

Who writes the episode descriptions for TV shows?

Re: Episode descriptions for TV shows. Does anyone know where they come from? I mean, for example, the episode descriptions that you read in a "TV Guide" type of magazine; or that you see on TV when you scroll through the TV version of the "TV Guide" channel; or even on the DVD packages. In general, who is responsible for drafting these episode descriptions? Are they "official", as in, are they from the producers? Or do some other third-party people take care of that, like, for example, at the syndicated TV stations? Is the task "contracted out" in the same way that, for example, closed-captioning or sub-titles are? Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 18:38, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

For DVDs/BluRay you will often see a separate set of credits for production of that version, along with the normal credits for the original version. StuRat (talk) 20:20, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

You might want to also ask about the descriptions on broadcast TV (when you hit the Info button, for example) or on cable/satellite. I've noticed they vary greatly in length and quality. Sometimes they are absent or only contain a general description of the series rather than the episode. At other times, it looks like somebody only watched the first minute and wrote the description based on that. StuRat (talk) 20:25, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

In the US, the program title and description is called an Electronic program guide. It is part of the digital information broadcast by local stations. The actual text is generally composed by the program syndicator or network and copied by someone at the station into its EPG electronically. --Thomprod (talk) 15:09, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

Thanks. I don't understand. If the show is (for example) a CBS show, then someone at CBS writes all these episode descriptions? Why are there several different versions "out there"? Shouldn't they all be uniform if they are all generated from the same one place (for example, the CBS staff member)? Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 19:48, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

If you check your cable TV listings, you may find they are provided by a service, such as Tribune Media Services. They have descriptions of movies and TV shows in their database, and there's no guarantee that it comes directly from a network such as CBS, although it might be based on it. As for the skimpy descriptions, typically this kind of information is just a teaser - it's not going to give away the ending. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:21, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, all. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 14:58, 23 July 2016 (UTC)