“Yeah!” Sung by Usher, topped the US Billboard Hot 100 chart for 12 consecutive weeks, before being dethroned by Usher’s follow-up single “Burn”. “Yeah!” was the longest-running number one single in 2004. It was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America. The song also received a similar response in other countries, topping in other twelve charts worldwide. while being nominated for Record of the Year. The song ranked second on the Billboard Hot 100 2000–2009 Decade-end chart. As of September 2013, the song has sold over 4 million copies in the US.
On May 6th, 2004 the series finale of the hit NBC sitcom, Friends premiered on television, to a whopping audience of fifty-two million viewers. Executive producers David Crane, Maria Kauffman, and Kevin S. Bright completed the draft of the finale just a few months earlier, at the start of the year. As they prepared to write this episode, they studied various other television finales to see what elements they enjoyed and what they didn’t enjoy. A primary factor in writing a “good” finale, is to keep true to the overall tone of the series. The writers cited the finale to the 1970’s sitcom, The Mary Tyler Moore Show as the primary example of this standard.
One week later, the series finale to Frasier aired on NBC, as well. Frasier aired longer than friends, with eleven seasons spanning from September of 1993 through May of 2004. This program was a spinoff to yet another long running sitcom, Cheers, which aired from September 1982 through May of 1993. Twenty years of television resulted from the latter sitcom; its spinoff was just as, if not more successful than its predecessor, garnering thirty-seven Emmy Awards. Interestingly enough, just a little over two months ago, a revival to Frasier was announced for Paramount+. This continuation is expected to begin production in 2022.
As these beloved programs came to an end, a new series debuted on Cartoon Network. Megas XLR was an homage to Japanese robot anime. It premiered on the Toonami block on May 1st. However, due to poor ratings the show was cancelled after about two seasons, airing its last episode on January 15th, 2005.
Nintendo officially ditched its long-used codename for its next generation machine, revealing Wii as the final name for the product. Under the codename Revolution Nintendo developed their project and in 2006 launched. The ads began in November 2006 and had a budget of over $200 million for the year, and Nintendo hoped that its console would appeal to a wider demographic than that of others in the seventh generation.
Writers: Micah Borrelli & Lucas Hydock
Miners Pub 