About

History (Formely known as The History Channel) is an American television channel owned by Art & Entertainment Networks (A&E), a company which is a joint venture between Hearst Corporation and The Walt Disney Company. ^[1] It has several sister channels, including H2 (History's second channel) and Crime and Investigation Network.

Channel History

The History Channel was launched January 1st, 1995, and focused on historical documentaries. In 2008, the channel's logo was remade, and the channel was renamed to just History. After the revamp of the channel, it focused more on reality series related to restoration and sale of antiques and historically valuable items, while occasionally airing feature length programs, which are usually documentaries about major wars such as World War II.

^{Left: The History Channel's logo (1995-2007) Right: History's logo (2008-present)}

Online Relevance

Online, History is often mocked for its airing of series with little to no educational value, leading to many image macros being made to display the differences between pre-revamp and post-revamp shows, in a similar fashion to "What the Fuck Happened?", as well as several "Expectation Vs. Reality" images.

Popular Series

Ancient Aliens

Ancient Aliens is a series of documentaries about recent findings of hidden artifacts or odd structures, accompanied with theories that aliens have visited Earth in the past and are responsible for the creation of the artifacts/structures. The show's host, Giorgio A. Tsoukalos, has become popular online due to an image which is a screenshot from the series in which he holds his hands upwards and makes an odd-looking facial expression, commonly captioned with "Aliens". The image is commonly used as a reaction image for seemingly inexplicable situations.

Pawn Stars

Pawn Stars is a television series which displays notable pawn deals and developments in the Gold & Silver pawn store, hosted by Rick Harrison and his family. The series is known online for catchphrases such as "Let me call an expert" and "Best I can do is X Bucks", along with the hosts' surprisingly low offers, which are commonly parodied through advice animals.

Notable Developments

Battletoads Preorder

Battletoads Preorder refers to a series of prank calls made to around 40 video game vendors, all owned by GameStop, asking for preorders for the rerelease and nonexistent sequel of the 1991 fighting video game Battletoads. On January 30th, 2012, A 4chan thread was made on the /b/ board, giving instructions for prank calls aimed towards Gold & Silver, a pawn store made popular by the ongoing series Pawn Stars, with the intention of asking the owners whether they had copies of Battletoads. After several greentext stories describing the calls, the thread started to focus on calls to the store in which the conversation would start with the poster seemingly asking for something unrelated to Battletoads, only to mention the game later on, as a form of bait and switch. ^[2] Soon after the thread was deleted, other threads were made for the same topic.

Phil Robertson's Suspension

Phil Robertson's Suspension, a development referred to as the Duck Dynasty Controversy, involves the temporary suspension of one of the hosts of the infamous reality series Duck Dynasty, caused by reportedly homophobic statements that Robertson made during an interview with GQ. After he was suspended, many viewers have boycotted the series until he regains the right to star in the series, as many have believed that his suspension was a sign of A&E Networks not tolerating free speech. After much debate, Robertson officially returned to Duck Dynasty to host the series.

Search Interest

External References