January tornadoes in wisconsin!?

Twister is a 1996 disaster film starring Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton as storm chasers researching tornadoes. It was directed by Jan de Bont. The film was based upon a script by Michael Crichton and his wife, former actress Anne-Marie Martin.

In the movie, a team of "storm chasers" try to perfect a data-gathering instrument, designed to be released into the funnel of a tornado, while competing with another better-funded team with a similar device.

Twister is notable for being the first movie ever to be released on the DVD format.

[edit] Main Characters

Jo Harding: The leader of her storm team. When she was five, Jo's father was killed in an F5 tornado because of a less-than-perfect warning system. Ever since then, she's dedicated her life to creating the advanced warning system. During the film she is in the process of divorcing from Bill Harding, but because she still loves him, she is hesitant to do so. Jo is dedicated and persistent in what she does.

Bill Harding: Jo's husband. He quit storm chasing to become a weatherman and has also gotten engaged to Melissa, a therapist, despite his divorce not yet finalized. Bill has a short fuse and always must have things his way. When he was a storm chaser, he was noted for being exceedingly reckless in his methods, being described as "the most out-of-control son of a **edited** in the game."

Melissa Reeves: Bill's soft-tempered and easily frightened fiancee. The storm chasing makes her uneasy around Bill.

Jonas Miller: Jo and Bill's rival chaser. Unlike Jo, Jonas has corporate sponsors and tends to chase for the publicity and money. Jonas is cocky and enjoys taunting Bill. Jonas is a scientist with 'no survival instincts' as said by Bill. This point is later proven in the film - as Jo and Bill continuously warn Jonas to drive away from the twister to which Jonas ignores causing his death.

Eddie: Jonas' reluctant assistant. Eddie is more reasonable than Jonas in several ways.

Aunt Meg: Jo's aunt. She is close to everyone in Jo's team and feeds them steak and eggs when they stop by. She is either a spinster or a widow, and she lives in Wakita with her dog, Moze.

Dustin 'Dusty' Davis: A member of Jo's chase team. The most extroverted and wise-cracking of the team, Dusty is the 'frat-boy' type. He drives a mini-bus called the "Barn Burner" and listens to loud music constantly.

Robert 'Rabbit' Nurick: A member of Jo's chase team. He acts as the navigator for when the group is chasing, and he is goofy but a little smart-alecky as well.

Sanders: A member of Jo's chase team. He is Rabbit's co-navigator.

Tim 'Beltzer' Lewis: A member of Jo's chase team. Beltzer is a lot like Bill in the fact that he has a short-fuse.

Haynes: A member of Jo's chase team. Haynes is the only other female on the team besides Jo. She is calm and quiet, but does have a wild side.

Jason 'Preacher' Rowe: A member of Jo's chase team. Preacher is the oldest member of the team. It is not certain what his role in the group is. He seems to enjoy continually speaking in pseudo-poetic verse.

Laurence: A member of Jo's chase team. Laurence is a nervous and quiet guy and is in charge of photographs and video when the group chases.

Joey: A member of Jo's chase team. He handles the Doppler and machinery.

[edit] Plot

In June of 1969, the film begins in a rural farm, as a severe thunderstorm hits. (They did not feature any downpours of rain in the beginning, just threatening skies and lightning.) Jo's father is watching a TV news report about a tornado warning for Oklahoma County. His wife quickly awakens their daughter, Jo ( Played by Spy Kids Co-star Alexa Vega), and all 3 take off for the storm cellar as a tornado hits the family farm. As lightning flashes all around them, one bolt hits a tree; sending branches crashing to the ground and chickens running. Once inside, his daughter screams that the family dog named Toby (named after Toto) is still outside, and Jo's father opens the cellar door just in time to let Toby in. As Jo's mother lights a candle, the twister makes a direct hit on the cellar. The twister turns out to be too powerful, and after a struggle, it rips the cellar door off—which takes Jo's father with it-into the vortex while Jo and her mother scream in horror. Daylight reveals that the tornado destroyed everything it touched (except some of Jo's family's possesions).

Many years after, the story revolves around two married storm chasers—Dr. Jo Harding (Hunt), now an adult, and her soon to be ex-husband Bill Harding (Paxton). As the film begins, Bill has gone into the fields of Oklahoma to find Jo and her team of storm chasers. Bill is a former weather researcher and storm chaser who has taken a job as a weather reporter and is about to marry his new girlfriend, Dr. Melissa Reeves (Jami Gertz), a Reproductive Therapist. Bill is seeking Jo’s signature for the final divorce papers.

When they meet, Bill discovers that Jo has built DOROTHY(named after Dorothy Gale), a device that Bill invented. DOROTHY is designed to release hundreds of sensors into the center of a tornado to study its structure. He also meets up with Dr. Jonas Miller (Cary Elwes), a smug fellow meteorologist and storm chaser. Miller is a savvy fund raiser but has little instinct for field work and has questionable professional scruples. When Bill discovers that Jonas has “invented” a device almost identical to DOROTHY called D.O.T. 3, Bill is enraged and vows to deploy DOROTHY before Miller can claim credit for his idea.

Bill joins Jo and her eccentric team of storm chasers, which includes Dustin 'Dusty' Davis (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and Robert 'Rabbit' Nurick (Alan Ruck). Jo's team enjoys the thrill of the chase, but to Jo it's more than that, as she is seeking to understand the thing that took her father. If the team is successful, DOROTHY will help increase warning times and save lives.

Tensions rise between Jo and Bill when they have several close calls with dangerous tornadoes as they try to implement the new device. Through these ordeals, it becomes obvious to everyone but them that they still have strong feelings for one another. | Jo's team stops in Canton, Oklahoma for the night. An F4 twister hits the town while they are in a drive-in movie theater watching The Shining. The squad doesn't have time to prepare for it so they seek refuge in a metal garage building. The garage takes a hard sideswipe from the tornado, which leaves the building severely damaged, and "Preacher" injured when he is struck in the head by an airborne hubcap. Melissa is too frightened by it and decides to leave Bill since she does not want to go through it. The powerful F4 tornado next moves on to the town of Wakita, Oklahoma, where Jo's Aunt Meg (Lois Smith) and her dog Moz live, wrecking her house and injuring her and many others.

The team then attacks their goal with even more fervor, wanting to succeed to prevent more injuries and deaths. They modify the sensors with an idea inspired by the windmill sculptures that Aunt Meg had in her front yard, by cutting up aluminum cans to create wings on each sensor so the tornado will pick them up more effectively. Soon, hot on the trail of another tornado, they next witness Jonas and his driver Eddie (Zach Grenier) drive right next to an F5 tornado. Jo and Bill try to warn Jonas that the tornado might shift its track and come at them, but Jonas won't listen. Sure enough, Bill's prediction proves to be true as the tornado changes course. A section of a radio tower antenna from the tornado flies right through the truck's windshield, and flies into the window. The twister then sucks the truck up. After a few moments of hovering in the air, the truck crashes back into the ground and explodes, killing Jonas and Eddie.

Jo and Bill decide that they will have to come dangerously close to the tornado in order to successfully release the sensors. They successfully release the sensors into the tornado, but to avoid DOROTHY being blown away too early they leave it strapped to the back of the truck to increase the weight and jump out, leaving the truck on cruise control. The idea works, but they lose their truck in the process. Suddenly, seeming alive, the tornado comes in their direction, and while running they take cover from the tornado in a farm pumphouse, tied to a water pipe by leather drive belts. After the tornado passes, Jo and Bill kiss, and the team begins to get the results they were hoping for, proving that DOROTHY was a success. The film ends with a retreating wideshot showing the damage path of the tornado, with only a farmhouse near where Bill and Jo took shelter remaining standing.

[edit] Cast

[edit] Theme park attraction

Twister... Ride It Out is an attraction located at Universal Studios Florida. It is based on the 1996 blockbuster film staring Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton. The attraction takes guests to a small mock-up of the Oklahoma town of Wakita. Video monitors show home movies of tornadoes shot, and signs carry information about the Fujita Scale.

As guests walk into the "Twister filming center", Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt talk about filming the movie. As soon as they are done, guests walk into a new room which is a square model of Aunt Meg's house after the twister. When guests walk into the kitchen, televisions are stuck into the wall, supposedly by force. Bill and Helen appear on the TV and talk about what is ahead. The moment they finish, guests walk into a scene, resembling the Drive-In scene in the movie. Suddenly, sirens go off, scenes from The Shining (which is being shown at the drive-in in the movie) appear on the screen, and then winds in the room get stronger. All of a sudden, a tornado drops from the sky, sprinklers turn on and a tree is split in half by lightning. Guests suddenly notice handlebars and grab on. Soon, the tornado wrecks the Screen, the food station, the car, and makes a thrilling effect with fire. As the storm dies, the stage drops, giving guests a final scare to remember the tornado's fury. There is a giftshop at the end named Aftermath.

[edit] Trivia

Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines. The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.

• The DOROTHY instrument in the film is loosely based on a real-life experiment that NOAA attempted in the 1980s with an instrument called the TOtable Tornado Observatory, or TOTO. It was designed to be placed in the path of an oncoming tornado where various measurements could be taken. However, TOTO was ultimately unsuccessful and it was retired in 1987.^{[citation needed]}
• A very young Alexa Vega, co-star of the Spy Kids films, plays Helen Hunt's character when she was little in the prologue. (The establishing caption at the start of the prologue reads 'JUNE 1969', and young Jo is confirmed as being '5 years old' in the closing credits.)
• Working titles for the film were Catch The Wind and Wind Devils.^{[citation needed]}
• This movie features 2 tracks "associated" with Van Halen: the instrumental "Respect the Wind" (performed by Eddie Van Halen and Alex Van Halen) and a band track called "Humans Being". The former is the only song on which the elder of the two brothers, Alex, has worked on something without the band Van Halen throughout his entire career (The song was credited to Eddie and Alex Van Halen).^{[citation needed]}. Incidentally, the second song was the last one recorded with vocalist Sammy Hagar before his acrimonious exit from the band in 1996.
• A joint production between Warner Bros. and Universal Pictures, which is why the movies on the drive-in marquee are The Shining, a Warner Bros. release, and Psycho, a Universal owned production.
• The original tagline for the movie was "It Sucks", but the producers ultimately decided to go in a different direction, thinking that this tagline would provide critics with ammunition if they didn't like the movie. The tagline that was eventually agreed upon was "The Dark Side of Nature".^{[citation needed]}
• The movie received a PG-13 rating for "intense depiction of very bad weather".
• Many references were made incorrectly to the Fujita scale. For instance, the weatherman in the beginning of the movie (a flashback scene that is supposed to be to 1969 – see later errors) made reference to an F5 tornado. This is a mistake; the Fujita scale was not introduced until 1971.
• In several occasions during the movie, the storm chasers estimate a tornado's intensity while it is occurring. In reality, a tornado's intensity was only able to be measured by the damage it left behind, generally after ground and aerial surveys were conducted by the National Weather Service, which used to take weeks to complete. While meteorologists now are able to more accurately predict tornados' intensities as they are occurring, in 1996 this was not feasible. A tornado's intensity could be determined by considering its size, speed, and debris cloud, but such predictions were just ballpark guesses.
• The sound of the tornado was produced by recording a camel's moan and slowing it down.^[1]
• Several actual television meteorologists from Oklahoma are featured throughout the movie. In the film's prologue, Gary England of KWTV-9 Oklahoma City can be seen on a small television in actual footage from the early 1970s. He can also be heard later in the movie reporting over the radio, and even delivering his (locally) famous closing tagline, "Stay with News 9; we'll keep you advised." Gary also served as a technical advisor on the film. Former KFOR-4 Oklahoma City (and later KJRH-2 Tulsa) meteorologist Jeff Lazalier is seen on television interviewing Cary Elwes's character, Jonas Miller, during the meal scene at Aunt Meg's. Soon after, Rick Mitchell, Chief Meteorologist at KOCO-5 Oklahoma City can also be heard giving a weather report over the radio. (On a related note: in the film's prologue the year is given as 1969, however, Gary England did not actually work as a meteorologist until 1972.)^{[citation needed]} Mike Morgan also of KFOR was also briefly seen.
• Sega Pinball released a pinball machine based on this movie.^[2]
• On May 21st, 1996, a tornado destroyed a Drive-in theater in St. Catharine's, Ontario which was scheduled to show the movie Twister. An Associated Press article titled "TORNADO DESTROYS 'TWISTER" THEATER' was published in the Boston Globe on May 22nd, 1996. Snopes.com reports that the facts of this incident were exaggerated into an urban legend that the theatre was actually playing Twister during the tornado. Comedian Bob Saget claims he was on his way to see the movie at this St. Catharines drive-in when the real thing hit.^[3]
• The twister in the first destruction scene was a replica made of the one used to suck up Dorothy in the Wizard of OZ. On the widescreen DVD release of the film you can see her house being pulled up into the sky by the tornado.
• The movie Star Wars is referenced when a character exclaims, "That's no moon, it's a space station!" in regards to a tornado confirmation.
• While chasing the "sister" tornado the scene is supposed to take place on a muddy land bridge. However through the window of the truck you can clearly see that they are on a highway and can even see oncoming traffic pass.
• During the chase after the confrontation between Bill and Jonas, the beginning of the guitar solo portion of the song "Child in Time" by Deep Purple is played as Dusty screams "The wonder of nature baby!". However, the video screen inside the car shows footage from Deep Purple's performance at the California Jam in 1974, featuring the MK III incarnation of the band, which NEVER performed this song live.
• After the final tornado tosses a tanker-truck onto the road, and it explodes, Bill and Jo escape the fire. But within the flames, there is an open door with a green exit sign above it.
• When they are trying to out-drive the F5 tornado, it begins to throw farm equipment onto the road. When a combine harvester lands on the road in front of the truck, Bill hits the extended auger and it shatters the passenger-side of the windshield. But in the next cut to the truck, the windshield is perfectly fine.
• the Original Motion Picture Score by Mark Mancina is considered a Collector's Item and is very difficult to find.
• During the summer run of Twister, an F3 tornado touched down in Bullitt County, Kentucky, causing major damage to some areas outside of Shepherdsville, Kentucky. The resulting disaster and local news coverage managed to boost interest in the film and its box office intake.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Official site for the film
• Twister at the Internet Movie Database
• Twister Museum Wakita, Oklahoma
• Hear the theme song

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A toaster is a small electric kitchen appliance designed to toast slices of bread, an act also known as 'making toast'. A typical modern 2-slice toaster draws anywhere between 600 and 1200 W and makes toast in 1 to 3 minutes.

[edit] Toaster types

Toaster with light-fitting plug ca.1909.

Modern toasters are typically one of three varieties: pop-up toasters, toaster ovens and conveyor toasters.

In pop-up or automatic toasters, bread slices are inserted vertically into slots (generally only large enough to admit a single slice of bread) on the top of the toaster. A lever on the side of the toaster is depressed, activating the toaster. When an internal device determines that the toasting cycle is complete, the toaster turns off and the toast pops up out of the slots. The heating elements of a pop-up toaster are usually oriented vertically, parallel to the bread slice - although there are some variations.

In earlier days, the completion of the toasting operation was determined by a mechanical clockwork timer; the user could adjust the running time of the timer to determine the degree of "doneness" of the toast, but the first cycle produced less toasted toast than subsequent cycles because the toaster was not yet warmed up. Toasters made since the 1940s frequently use a thermal sensor, such as a bimetallic strip, located in close proximity to the toast. This allows the first cycle to run longer than subsequent cycles. The thermal device is also slightly responsive to the actual temperature of the toast itself. Like the timer, it can be adjusted by the user to determine the doneness of the toast.

By comparison, toaster ovens are small electric ovens with a door on one side and a tray within. To toast bread with a toaster oven, one lays down slices of bread horizontally on the tray, closes the door, and activates the toaster, usually by means of a lever. When the toast is done, the toaster turns off, but the door must be opened manually. Most toaster ovens are significantly larger than toasters, but are capable of performing most of the functions of electric ovens, albeit on a much smaller scale. They can be used to cook toast with toppings, like garlic bread or cheese, though they tend to produce drier toast and require longer operating times, since their heating elements are located further from the toast (to allow larger items to be cooked). They may also heat less evenly than either toasters or larger electric ovens, and some glass cookware cannot be used in them.

Conveyer toasters are designed to make many slices of toast and are generally used in the catering industry, being suitable for large-scale use. Bread is toasted 350-800 slices an hour, making conveyor toasters ideal for a large restaurant that is constantly busy with growing demand. However, such devices have occasionally been produced for home use as far back as 1938, when the Toast-A-Lator went into limited production.

As with so many home appliances, more elaborate toasters and toaster ovens now utilize computer-controlled mechanisms in place of electromechanical controls. Toasters are usually freestanding, counter-top appliances, although some toaster ovens may be hung beneath cabinets.

Sometimes toast gets stuck in a toaster, particularly pop-up toasters, and must be freed manually. As most toasters are in the kitchen, metal knives and forks are typically an easily available tool but are inadvisable to use, due to the risk of electric shock, unless the appliance is disconnected from the mains.

[edit] History of toasters

Prior to the development of the electric toaster, sliced bread was toasted by placing it in a metal frame and holding it over a fire or by holding it near to a fire using a long handled fork.

Utensils for toasting bread over open flames go back at least 200 years. Toasters for bread using electricity were invented by Crompton and Company, Leeds, England in 1893.^[1] The technology that makes electric toasters possible, a nichrome wire that can endure high heat, has existed for a long time. At least two other brands of toasters had been introduced commercially around the time GE submitted the first patent application for their model D-12 in 1909.^[2]

In 1913 Lloyd Groff Copeman and his wife Hazel Berger Copeman applied for various toaster patents and in that same year the Copeman Electric Stove Company introduced the toaster with automatic bread turner.^[3] The company also produced the "toaster that turns toast." Before this, electric toasters cooked bread on one side and then it was flipped by hand to toast the other side. Copeman's toaster turned the bread around without having to touch it.^[4] Copeman also invented the first electric stove and the rubber (flexible) ice cube tray.^[3]

The next development was the semi-automatic toaster, which turned off the heating element automatically after the bread toasted, using either a clockwork mechanism or a bimetallic strip. However, the toast was still manually lowered and raised from the toaster via a lever mechanism.

The automatic pop-up toaster, which ejects the toast after toasting it, was first patented by Charles Strite in 1919. In 1925, using a redesigned version of Strite's toaster, the Waters Genter Company introduced the Model 1-A-1 Toastmaster,^[5] the first automatic pop-up, household toaster that could brown bread on both sides simultaneously, set the heating element on a timer, and eject the toast when finished. By 1950, some high-end U.S. toasters featured automatic toast lowering and raising, with no levers to operate - simply dropping the slices into the machine commenced the toasting procedure.

Significant ultramodern chrome designs were the Sunbeam T-9 "Half-Round" or "World's Fair" toaster, designed by George Scharfenberg and introduced in 1939, and the General Electric 139T81, produced in quantity from 1946.^[6] Automatic electric toasters were very much a luxury item, with the better models costing up to $25 in 1939 (approximately $360 in 2006 dollars). Most toasters produced from the late 1930s through 1960 are generally considered to be of the highest standard in workmanship and material quality; many were built well enough to last for decades. Due to their aesthetic popularity, some of the classic toaster designs from the 1940s and 1950s are now being reintroduced into the market, though these reproductions for the most part are not constructed to the high standard of the original designs.

More recent additions to toaster technology include wider toasting slots for bagels and thick breads, the ability to toast frozen breads, and a single-side heating mode. Most toasters can also be used to toast other foods such as teacakes, Pop Tarts, and crumpets, though the addition of melted butter and/or sugar to the interior components of automatic electric toasters often contributes to eventual mechanical or electrical failure.

Toasters can be modified to print images and logos on bread slices.

[edit] High-tech toasters

There have been a number of projects adding advanced technology to toasters.

In 1990 Simon Hackett and John Romkey created The Internet Toaster, a toaster which could be controlled from the Internet.^[7]

In 2001 Robin Southgate from Brunel University in England created a toaster that could toast a graphic of the weather prediction (limited to sunny or cloudy) onto a piece of toast.^[8] The toaster dials a pre-coded phone number to get the weather forecast.^[9]

In 2005, Technologic Systems, a vendor of embedded systems hardware, designed a toaster running the NetBSD Unix-like operating system as a sales demonstration system.^[10]

[edit] Other uses of the word 'toaster'

• Toasters are commonly used as fictitious computer peripherals for device driver sample code; for example, the Microsoft Windows Driver Development Kit includes a Toaster sample driver.^[11]
• The original Apple Macintosh computer was sometimes referred to derogatorily as a beige toaster due to its lack of cooling fans.^{[citation needed]}
• The Commodore 1541 floppy disk drive was also known among users as the "toaster", due to its internal power source which generated some heat.
• The term toaster is also used to refer to an email server via which users can retrieve their email using the POP3 or IMAP protocols
• Toaster is slang for a recordable optical disc drive; Roxio Toast is one program which works with such devices. The term coaster toaster is also seen, particularly in reference to a drive with a high rate of recording errors.
• The New Zealand Railways EF Class (NZR EF class) locomotives are nicknamed toasters, probably due to the fact that they are currently the only electric locomotives in revenue service, and they have a very boxy shape.

[edit] Toasters in popular culture

• A toaster is one of the main characters in the children's novella The Brave Little Toaster, which was made into a 1987 film.

• A toaster appears infrequently as a character in the British sci-fi comedy series Red Dwarf. Named Talkie Toaster, it is obsessed with making toast for the crewmembers much to their annoyance. He is eventually smashed to pieces with a 14 lb hammer.

• Comedian Heywood Banks uses a metal toaster as a percussion instrument in his song entitled "Toast".

• Phil Conners, Bill Murray's character in Groundhog Day, uses an electric toaster to commit suicide.

• In "The Puppy Episode" of the 1990s sitcom Ellen, a toaster oven is sardonically identified as the imaginary prize a lesbian receives for "converting" a sufficient number of heterosexual women. The reference has since become a common joke in the gay community.

• One of the world's most famous screensavers shows Flying Toasters.

• In the 2003 version of Battlestar Galactica, the term "Toasters" is a derogatory reference to Cylons.

• In the Tiny Toon Adventures episode "Prom-ise Her Anything," Montana Max angrily declares that, on the evolutionary chart, Elmyra Duff ranks somewhere "between head cheese and toaster ovens."

• In the Simpsons Treehouse of Horror V, Homer uses a modified toaster to travel back in time.

• In Philips Interactive Media's game Hotel Mario for the CD-i, there is a cut scene where Mario says "You know what they say, All toasters, toast toast.".