| TR-235054-16 | Public Programs: Media Projects Production | WNET | Bob Hope: America's Entertainer | 6/1/2016 - 6/30/2018 | $400,000.00 | Michael | | Kantor | | | | WNET | New York | NY | 10019-7416 | USA | 2016 | U.S. History | Media Projects Production | Public Programs | 400000 | 0 | 400000 | 0 | Production of a 90-minute documentary and related digital components on Bob Hope (1903–2003) and the history of 20th-century popular entertainment.
WNET is seeking a production grant from the NEH for a multi-platform project about Bob Hope, his extraordinary career, and his enormous impact on American entertainment and American culture. The centerpiece of the project—entitled Bob Hope: America's Entertainer—is a documentary biography that will be broadcast in late 2017 as part of WNET’s American Masters series. Among the many entertainers who defined 20th-century American show business, Bob Hope occupied a unique place. He achieved tremendous success in every major popular entertainment medium of the century: vaudeville, Broadway, movies, radio, television and live concert, and his tours to entertain U.S. troops and his wartime radio broadcasts helped buoy the nation's spirits during World War II. And yet, in the crucible of the 1960s he became a controversial figure, alienating much of a generation and permanently damaging his legacy. Today, he is largely overlooked, taken for granted, or dismissed as a relic. |