ENGLISH SCRIPT TITLES (scripts below, or click a title)

Animal Planet Stadium Welcome, Baseball Hall of Fame, Belt with Flowers and Cartouche, California State Parks, Doctor Seuss, Geography Action, Great Moments on Broadway, Hershey, Jacques Lewis David, Jamaica, Library of Congress – Acoustic Tour, Library Preservation, Metropolitan Museum, Museum of Fine Arts, New York's Upper East Side, New Zealand, The Nile, Philadelphia Audio Tour, Prairie Pothole Region, Rockwell - Colgate Toothpaste, Tibet, Titanic - The Exhibition, Top of the Rock Observation Deck, Toulouse - Lautrec, Triumph of Fame, University of Virginia

ENGLISH SCRIPTS

 

ANIMAL PLANET STADIUM WELCOME

Welcome to the Animal Planet stadium in Silver Spring Maryland where the event of the year has gone to the dogs. The top puppy players from all over the country have been training for this moment all season long..

 

BASEBALL HALL OF FAME

Welcome to the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. The first stop on your journey is the Cooperstown Room where you will come face to face with ten electees who were present for that first induction ceremony in 1939. Here rare vintage photographs trace the origin of the game. Next comes the Great Moments Room where the game’s most famous events evoke more recollections. Legendary artists have also captured these special occasions on canvas, and Abbott and Costello entertain you with their classic parody, “Who’s on First?”
Located on Main Street in the heart of picturesque Cooperstown, New York, the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum is one of the country's major tourist destinations - and is surely the best-known sports shrine in the world.
Opening its doors for the first time on June 12, 1939, the Hall of Fame has stood as the definitive repository of the game's treasures and as a symbol of the most profound individual honor bestowed on an athlete. It is every fan's "Field of Dreams" with its stories, legends and magic to be passed on from generation to generation.
The centerpiece of the Museum is the historic Hall of Fame Gallery, where the plaques of every Hall of Fame member line the oak walls. In the front section of the Gallery, visitors will see artifacts representing the most recent class of Hall of Famers.

 

BELT WITH FLOWERS AND CARTOUCHE

This artist takes Raphael's picture as his model, but does away with the poetry and idealization, rendering her instead as an object of desire. Take a moment to look at its fine details: the pattern of tiny flowers woven with silver and gold silk thread…the silver border… and the rectangles, or cartouches, lined in red. Each displays a word from a passionate love poem. The basic design for the belt with flowers and cartouche came from a popular pattern book of the 16th century, indicated here by the precision of the embroidery. But the lettering is irregular and slightly misshapen, suggesting that whoever wove this belt chose the poem and also added the phoenixes, working without any kind of template

 

CALIFORNIA STATE PARKS

Welcome to the California State Park’s Directory of Natural Resources. California’s parks are here for the entire family to enjoy. They’re your parks, and we urge you to abide by basic conservation guidelines. On days designated as “dry days,” please do not light matches or start fires of any kind in any of our parks. The threat of forest fires is of constant concern to California Foresters. Campfires are permitted, but in designated Campfire Zones only. All state parks are open at 7 a.m. and close at sundown. Please adhere to this rule for your own safety and protection. We would like you to come back often and take advantage of California’s great outdoors. After all, you make it work.

 

DR SEUSS FROM THEN TO NOW

By now you should be standing in front of a series of world-famous children's books created by Dr Seuss - beginning with number 88 on your left: Green Eggs and Ham.
$It's no doubt familiar to you and your family - over 1.5 million copies have been sold annually since its creation in 1960. In fact, even forty years after its debut, children still mail the author green eggs and ham. By the time this book appeared in bookstores and libraries in 1960, Dr Seuss had become an industry.
Take a moment and study the outrageous colors and free-spirited style the characters are rendered in. Look at the cover. It's quite unlike the traditional Dick and Jane books so popular before Dr Seuss. You probably are already pretty familiar with the verse. But note how it all comes together on the pages displayed - the art, the verse, the design, the colors... even the size of the book itself. Not a wasted inch or unnecessary verse. It's all a symphony of very well orchestrated nonsense. And like all of his creations... it works; wonderfully.

 

GEOGRAPHY ACTION

“Geography Action Rivers 2002” is an educational outreach program of the National Geographic Society in partnership with The Coca-Cola Company and The Conservation Fund. Click here to explore a river system.The River source, also called the headwaters, is the beginning of a river. Often located in mountains, the source may be fed by an underground spring, or by runoff from rain, snowmelt, or glacial melt. Wetlands are low-lying areas saturated with water for long enough periods to support vegetation adapted to wet conditions. Wetlands help maintain river quality by filtering out pollutants and sediments, and by regulating nutrient flow.

 

GREAT MOMENTS ON BROADWAY

Who wouldn't want to resurrect Fanny Brice? She was a wonderful entertainer. And since Fanny herself could not be brought back, the next best thing was to get a young Barbara Streisand to sing and strut and go through comic routines a la Brice. Streisand was, in 1964, well on her way to becoming a splendid entertainer in her own right, and in Funny Girl, she went as far as any performer could toward recalling the laughter and joy that was Fanny Brice.
But this Tony winning show was about much more than a tribute to the buffoonery of Ms Brice. It was also intent on telling the story of how Fanny loved and lost Nick Arnstein, and it was both sentimental and touching.
These costumes and sets reflected everything from Ziegfield's Follies to Brice's dressing room and a Circle Line cruise ship. The most famous was this stairway in which Streisand as a pregnant Fanny - amidst a bevy of chorus girls and beneath this grand chandelier - enters in this wedding gown and got the most resounding laugh of the evening.
Streisand performed over 1,348 nights ... and cemented her career as a Broadway phenomena.

 

HERSHEY

Welcome to Hershey, the Great American Chocolate Town, where families come together for a taste of the sweet life. Tucked in the rolling hills of Central Pennsylvania, this idyllic escape offers the latestand greatest in entertainment and hospitality, fused with the traditions of one of America's original success stories. Even the smiles seem sweeter! With attractions, accommodations, amenities and activities in all flavors, a trip to “The Sweetest Place on Earth” is an easy treat.

 

JACQUES LOUIS DAVID'S -"MARAT"

Jean-Paul Marat was sitting in the bathtub when he was murdered on July 13, 1793. A teacher of languages, a journalist and a physician, Marat had turned out to be one of the most radical demagogues the French Revolution produced. He spent much of his time in his tub to find relief from a chronic skin rash. He wore a compress on his head to relieve headaches from which he also suffered. While he was bathing on this fateful day, he was reading a letter from Charlotte Corday, the great grand-daughter of the playwright Pierre Corneille. The young noblewoman had tried in vain to gain admittance to Marat. Now she had sent him a letter slyly suggesting a tete-a-tete. He let her in and she stabbed him. Marat died instantly.
Many contemporaries were pleased with the deed. Marat had been a tough customer. He had had 860 gallows erected to deal with his political enemies and had sent over 200,000 of them to the gallows.
David was a fervent revolutionary and a personal friend of Marat. He obliged by by rendering Marat's corpse on canvas just as he had had it put on public display; with his bare chest and wounds visible. The image became a symbol of the French Revolution. It was placed on a church altar, smothered under billowing clouds of incense. It replaced crucifixes and Royal portraits. But soon after, this personality cult ended, the painting put in hiding and Marat's heart, once placed beneath the painting, was burned and the ashes scattered in the Montmartre sewer.

 

JAMAICA

Jamaica...an island of extraordinary beauty, colorful flowers, cascading waterfalls, dramatic mountain ranges and spectacular seascapes. An island of romance and enchantment...Jamaica. Jamaica is the third largest island in the Caribbean, located just south of Cuba. Daily flights arrive from New York, Miami, San Juan, Toronto, Montreal and London into Jamaica's two airports in Montego Bay and Kingston.

 

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS ACOUSTIC GUIDE

Welcome to the Thomas Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress. You have just come in through the west ground level entrance, under the granite archway. Start your visit here, at the Visitor's Center, where volunteers and automated information kiosks will help to answer your questions. On this level you'll also find the Sales Shop, a cloakroom, restrooms, and the theater where you can see a short film about the Library of Congress. Next, walk up the staircase on the south side of the Visitor's Center, or take one of the elevators, and go up one floor to the Great Hall. You are now in the center of the Great Hall. From here you will be able to appreciate the grandeur of the architecture. The ceiling, 75 feet above the marble floor, is decorated with stained glass skylights supported by elaborately paneled beams finished in aluminum leaf. In the center of the marble floor is a large brass inlay shaped like a sun, on which are inscribed the four cardinal points of the compass.

 

LIBRARY PRESERVATION

Our knowledge of ourselves and the world around us grows only through the accumulation of countless bits of information, laid down like bricks as a foundation for wisdom. Libraries are the intellectual brickyards of our civilization, fundamental to our survival and growth. This is the largest library in the world. More than 84 million items are housed in three buildings on 535 miles of shelves. The accumulated facts, fantasies, philosophies, and fears of mankind are brought here in every medium yet devised to record information.

 

METROPOLITAN MUSEUM

The Museum's collection of Old Master and nineteenth-century European paintings—one of the greatest such collections in existence—numbers approximately 2,200 works, dozens of which are instantly recognizable worldwide. The French, Italian, and Dutch schools are most strongly represented, with fine works also by British, Netherlandish, German, Spanish, and Flemish masters. The department's holdings—which consist not only of paintings on canvas and wood but also of frescoes, oil sketches, and finished pastels on paper, as well as a small number of Greek and Russian icons—range in date from the twelfth through the nineteenth century. Among its many masterpieces are exceptional assemblages of the work of the French Impressionists.

 

MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS, BOSTON - GUIDED TOUR

Few Old Masters are as enduringly popular as Rembrandt and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, is proud to exhibit “Rembrandt’s Journey: Painter – Draftsman – Etcher.” The exhibition reveals the all-encompassing scope of the artist’s interests via his paintings, etchings and drawings. Beginning with Rembrandt’s constant and unflinching depictions of his own face, his pen and brush captured an unprecedented array of subjects…

 

NEW YORK'S UPPER EAST SIDE

Let's begin our tour here, by the statue of William Tecumseh Sherman on Fifty-Ninth Street and Fifth Avenue.
You are standing in the midst of the Upper East Side - justifiably considered New York's "Gold Coast" with Fifth Avenue its "Millionaires' Row". It is in this neighborhood that Lady Caroline Astor countenanced the four hundred most important New Yorkers (those who would attend her illustrious parties); it is on these streets that J.P. Morgan had built - "damning the expense" - his famous Metropolitan Club; and it is here that the longest single uninterrupted set of mansions once stood. If there ever was a competition for wealth and power in one neighborhood, the Upper East Side would win hands down.
Yet, despite its undeniable standing as an area of prominence and renown, the Upper East Side has a much broader appeal. The neighborhood maintains a diversity to its history that is often overlooked amid the goings-on of Manhattan's haute bourgeoisie.

 

NEW ZEALAND

New Zealand has to be seen to be believed. Its unusual cities are gateways to the dramatically beautiful countryside, with superb open spaces, emerald hills, and snow-tipped alpine mountains. It is also a land of wonderful waters, waterfalls, geysers, endless inland seas, and a coastline bordered by miles of broad, clean beaches. Since it’s a land with so many things to do and see, you’ll want to plan your vacation carefully, based on your tastes, time, and budget. This video offers you a menu of individual options to choose from ... everything you need for an unforgettable New Zealand holiday.

 

NILE

Standing proud and magnificent on the banks of the legendary Nile is the only remaining Wonder of the Ancient World; the Great Pyramids and Sphinx at Giza. Travel to the edge of the desert plateau with your guide Omar Sharif, for an ancient unprecedented look into the secret passageways and chambers of these colossal and mysterious monuments. Mysteries of the Pyramids will answer some of the darkest questions that have haunted man for century upon century.

 

PHILADELPHIA AUDIO TOUR

Welcome to Sonic Tours Independence National Park tour. We are delighted that you’ve joined us us on this self guided walking tour of one of America’s most historic and fascinating cities, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This walking tour will bring us to many sites and structures of historic importance in Independence Park. We’ll discover many of the dwellings and meeting places that were part of America’s fight for independence from Britan. This self guided tour will allow you not only to learn about this historic city, but best of all, you can visit the sites at your own pace. You may see an irresistable restaurant along the way, or a quaint shop that is too good to pass up. Fee free to partake in all the city has to offer. Our tour will always be waiting for you, and is just a click away. When you hear the bell toll during the tour, this is a signal to pause your player and move on to the next tour stop.

 

PRAIRIE POTHOLE REGION

This is the prairie pothole region, a mosaic of grasses and wetlands. These tall grasses and wild flowers, deep rooted and resilient, thrive in the rich soil surrounding the wetlands a haven for an incredible diversity of life.

 

ROCKWELL - COLGATE TOOTHPASTE

At first glance, you may think this painting is another example of Rockwell telling a story about telling a story. But it's more than that… it's an advertisement. This painting was created as an ad for Colgate toothpaste.
Rockwell understood that sometimes ads work better when you don't clunk people over the head with a hard sell.
Rockwell used this wholesome scene of the two of you to sell an image of family and America that he hoped would make people feel warm and fuzzy and want to buy toothpaste.

 

TIBET

Welcome to the Rice Museum’s special exhibit: Tibet, the Sacred Realm. The photographs you are about to see contain more than 180 images, most of which have never before been shown in public. No country in the world remains more mysterious, distant, and inaccessible than Tibet. Bordered by the massive Himalayas to the south and west, and by endless barren wastes to the north, for centuries the country’s natural isolation allowed its people to develop culture free from outside interference.

 

TITANIC - THE EXHIBITION

Welcome to Titanic - The Exhibition. Please remain in this orientation area while we introduce the tour and explain how this easy-to-use devise can make your exhibition experience more rewarding. Before we begin, please take a look at your listening device. You can select any numbered object in the exhibit simply by typing in its number by using the keyboard on the front of the wand. This allows you to wander freely throughout the exhibit - but we will lead you sequentially as your first choice. You will lose nothing in the narrative by moving ahead or back at your own choosing.
Feel free to spend as much time as you wish at any site. You can proceed by simply pressing the green button to advance to the next object in sequence - or make your own selection by typing it its corresponding number.
Please enjoy your tour and this very special exhibition experience. Now please move to station number 2 as we introduce your guide - Sir Sean Connery.

 

TOP OF THE ROCK OBSERVATION DECK

Welcome to Top Of The Rock, the best views of New York City from the newly renovated 3-tiered observation deck at the summit of 30 Rockefeller Plaza. The views from all three levels of the observation deck are breathtaking. With its open-air simplicity, complete 360-degree skyline, and crystal clear panels of glass showcasing the 80-mile view, Top Of The Rock is unmatched by any other vantage point in New York City.

 

TOULOUSE-LAUTREC

It was, for many, the best of times - an era with the fundamental character of the future sprang forth into the daily lives of people who had, only fifty years earlier, existed in almost medieval conditions. The 1880's and 1890's saw the first rewards of the modern industrialized world in mass-produced abundance. It was the era of "more" - more bread and wine, more newspapers and books, more textiles and fashionable garments and opportunities for modish extravagance. There were more places to go - music halls and vaudeville shows and popular entertainment at the circus, the race tracks, and brothels; more fun to be had and pipers to pay.
The fin de siècle brought the dawning of a new age and a new attitude toward life in France. And its greatest recorder of life and living in this period was a disfigured genius - a chronicler of all that was urbane and celebrated, a master of imagery and tragic figure whose life paralleled this bohemian revel: Henri De Toulouse-Lautrec.

 

TRIUMPH OF FAME

This is the most spectacular, grand // desco da parto that has survived and come down to us. It was made for the birth of Lorenzo de' Medici, or Lorenzo the Magnificent, the de facto ruler of Florence. The subject, the Triumph of Fame, is represented by a winged woman standing on a globe, holding in one hand, a sword and in the other, a statuette of Cupid drawing his bow. Trumpets herald Fame to warriors on horseback gathered below. This imagery is derived from the poetry of Boccaccio, and also Petrarch, who described a group like the twenty-eight warriors, who raise their arms in a pledge of allegiance. Other decorative parts of this birth tray include the marvelous ostrich feathers around the outside. These are related to Piero de' Medici, the child's father, and they stood for his steadfastness because ostrich feathers are so stiff that they do not bend in the wind. We can imagine that this tray was commissioned by Piero de' Medici, and given to his wife, on the birth of their child, Lorenzo. The tray was hanging in Lorenzo's bed chamber when he died, in 1492. Take a walk around the tray to see the back. Then press 27 to hear about it.

 

UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA GUIDED TOUR

The buildings you see here were designed by Thomas Jefferson in 1819 when the University of Virginia was founded. Jefferson hated big buildings. He thought they were ugly and conducive to disease so in designing his university he spread everything out. He also thought there should be a lot of interaction between students and professors so he designed places for them to live here on the Lawn in what he called an academical village.