Somehow or other... it's coming just the same.

Do you hear what I hear?

Christmas is but a day away.

Although the ACME phone banks are closed, believe me, ACME factories are hard at work.

So, were you naughty or nice?



You may dab your eyes - It really doesn't matter at this point, Santa knows the score.


December 24, 1940 -
George Cukor's classic film-comedy The Philadelphia Story, starring Cary Grant, Katherine Hepburn, and Jimmy Stewart premiered on this date.



The film was shot in eight weeks, and required no retakes. During the scene where James Stewart hiccups when drunk, you can see Cary Grant looking down and grinning. Since the hiccup wasn't scripted, Grant was on the verge of breaking out laughing and had to compose himself quickly. Stewart (apparently spontaneously) thought of hiccuping in the drunk scene, without telling Grant. When he began hiccuping, Grant turned to Stewart, saying, "Excuse me." The scene required only one take.


December 24, 1951 -
Gian Carlo Menotti's one act opera, Amahl and the Night Visitors premiered on this date. It has become a Christmas classic.



The one surviving kinescope of this first production was thought to have been lost forever, accidentally destroyed by someone at NBC after it had been screened for an executive, but another copy was discovered at the Museum of Radio and Television, in New York.


December 24, 1953 -
Jack Webb's series Dragnet aired a special episode, The Big Little Jesus on this date.



The episode was network television's first half-hour color film. It was the only color show of the series. Those of you with very sharp eyes can tell with some prompting that this is not the color episode.

Sorry about that.


December 24, 1970 -
The Walt Disney Studio released the animated musical The Aristocats, featuring voices of Phil Harris, Eva Gabor, Hermione Baddeley, Sterling Holloway, and Scatman Crothers, on this date.



This was the last animated feature to be approved by Walt Disney and the studio's first animated feature to be entirely completed after his death. It should be noted, however, that Disney had spent time working on the story for The Rescuers (released seven years later) around the time The Jungle Book entered production.


December 24, 1977 -
The Bee Gees started a three week run at No.1 on the US singles chart with How Deep Is Your Love, the group's 4th US No. 1.



The Bee Gees wrote this for the American singer Yvonne Elliman. Robert Stigwood, who produced the movie Saturday Night Fever, insisted the Bee Gees perform it themselves for the soundtrack. Elliman did sing If I Can't Have You, which was written by The Bee Gees and included on the soundtrack.


December 24, 1994 -
Pearl Jam's third studio album Vitalogy went to No.1 position on the US album charts on this date.



The Vitalogy album was released as a vinyl record two weeks before it was issued on CD. Vinyl was completely outdated and not yet retro-cool, but many people still had record players and Pearl Jam liked the imperfect sound, with the scratches and blips providing a different listening experience each time.


I bet your house is abuzz as well.


Today in History:
December 24, 1818 -
The classic Christmas carol, Silent Night, was first performed on this date.



At St. Nicholas Church in Oberndorff, Austria, Franz Gruber, composed on his guitar the melody for Silent Night. The music was combined with the words from Joseph Mohr's poem, Stille Nacht.


December 24, 1826 -
On hearing that their Christmas celebrations had to be alcohol-free, several West Point cadets smuggled in a few jugs of whiskey. Their private party got out of hand, and the ensuing melee became known as The "Eggnog Riot", (the 'Whiskey Rebellion' had already been taken ).



Shots were fired, and an artillery unit had to be called in to calm things down. Among the participants was future President of the Confederacy Jefferson Davis.


December 24, 1871 -
Our old pal Joe Green's opera Aida premiered on this date. Set in the Old Kingdom of Egypt, Aida was commissioned to celebrate the opening of the Khedivial Opera House in Cairo and Joe, who had to take the stage name Giuseppe Verdi because no one would take a composer named Joe Green seriously, got paid 150,000 francs for the master work.



The opera was met with great acclaim, and was soon mounted at major opera houses throughout Italy.


December 24, 1865 -
Southern white folks united together to form a service organization wherein they consort with other southern white folks on this date.



Members participate in festive cruciform fire ceremonies and lively negro butcherings.



By the 1920s membership in the Ku Klux Klan reaches an astonishing two million.


December 24, 1867 -
This was the first time that the R.H. Macy's department store in New York City remained open until midnight to catch last-minute shoppers.



Things never change.


December 24, 1914 -
World War I was only months old on Christmas Eve 1914 when an extraordinary unofficial truce occurred in many places along the Western Front. "We were all moved and felt quite melancholy," wrote one German soldier, "each of us taken up with his own thoughts of home." German and English troops, often less than one hundred yards from each other, set aside warfare to trade Christmas greetings and sing familiar carols in two languages (If you remember correctly, most of the major players in this war were more than just on a first name basis - they were all related to a minor German prince who happened to be married to his cousin, the Queen of England.)



The truce, probably observed by two-thirds of the British and German troops, ended with the holiday, but reasserted the basic decency of ordinary men like these British and German soldiers caught up in war.


December 24, 1954 -
Rock musician Johnny Ace plays a little .45 calibre solitaire (Russian Roulette) at City Auditorium in Houston after a concert.



Blammo.



He thought it would impress his girlfriend - perhaps it did.


December 24, 1955 –
NORAD tracked Santa for the first time in what will become an annual Christmas Eve tradition,

thanks to a misprinted phone number in a Sear’s retail catalogue, on this date.



For the first several years, it was run by the Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD) Center. (Psst bunkies don't worry - Even though the ex-president believed that NORAD was part of the deep state, NORAD continues to track Santa's progress.)


December 24, 1968 -
Apollo VIII astronauts read passages from the Old Testament Book of Genesis and transmitting a message to all mankind calling for 'peace on earth', during a Christmas Eve television broadcast. The three astronauts, James A. Lovell, William Anders and Frank Borman (our friend with the messy space suit,) had reached the Moon.



They would orbit the moon ten times, paving the way for the first Earthling to walk on the lunar surface some seven months down the road.


December 24, 1985 -
Fidel Castro announced that he has given up cigars on this date.

Perhaps now that he is singing with the choir of angels, Castro will intercede on your behalf with Santa.


You'd better hurry up and finish your shopping before I start explaining how the War of 1812 was resolved by the Treaty of Ghenet on this date in 1814 and yet the Battle of New Orleans took place on January 8, 1815, after the treaty was signed.

While your wrapping your gifts, here's some Sinatra on the digital Victrola to put you in that holiday mood



And so it goes.

Kruger Industrial Smoothing ... we don't care and it shows.

Festivus for the rest of us



As not to embarrass yourself tonight at your Festivus family gathering, here are the four tenets of the holiday:



The Festivus Pole: During Festivus, an unadorned aluminum pole is displayed. The pole was chosen apparently in opposition to the commercialization of highly decorated Christmas trees, because it is "very low-maintenance," and also because the holiday's patron, Frank Costanza, "find[s] tinsel distracting."



Festivus Dinner: The Festivus dinner menu is flexible, but it should consist of filling, non-holiday comfort food (no turkey, duck, goose, or ham). The televised dinner featured what may have been meatloaf or spaghetti in a red sauce. (Presumably, an entree in a red sauce is more festive.) Kruger took a flask out from his jacket and took a swig; so one might interpret that drinking is optional.



The Airing of Grievances: At the Festivus dinner, each participant tells friends and family of all the instances where they disappointed him or her that year.



The Feats of Strength: The head of the family tests his or her strength against one participant of the head's choosing. Festivus is not considered over until the head of the family has been pinned to the ground. A participant is allowed to decline to attempt to pin the head of the family only if they have something better to do instead.

Don't forgot to keep your eye out for the Festivus Miracle. A Festivus Miracle is a frequent if unimpressive miracle. Carrying in all the groceries into the house for Festivus Dinner without tripping or dropping one of the bags could be considered a Festivus Miracle.

A Healthy and Happy Festivus to you and your family.


December 23, 1942 -
The Noel Coward-David Lean War time drama, In Which We Serve, premiered in the US on this date.



After about three weeks of shooting, Noël Coward realized that (a) David Lean knew a lot more about filmmaking than he did, and (b) he didn't care much for the long hours. So Coward effectively handed the directorial reins over to his partner at that point.


December 23, 1954 -
Walt Disney's live-action film, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, premiered on this date.



In 1969, Captain Nemo's pipe organ, which had been on display in Disneyland, was redressed and now resides in the ballroom of Disneyland's Haunted Mansion. A duplicate was constructed for the ballroom of Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom Haunted Mansion, which opened in 1971, and over a decade later another duplicate was built for Tokyo Disneyland.



The climactic squid battle on the Nautilus was originally shot with a serene sunset and a calm sea. Director Richard Fleischer was troubled by the look of it because the cams and gears that operated the squid could easily be seen, making it look obviously fake. Walt Disney visited the set one day and Fleischer told him about the problem. Disney came up with the idea of having the squid battle take place during a fierce storm (another story is that it was actually screenwriter Earl Felton who came up with the idea). The scene was reshot that way and is considered by many to be the highlight of the film.


December 23, 1956 -
Alfred Hitchcock's classic quasi-docudrama, The Wrong Man, starring Henry Fonda, Anthony Quayle and Vera Miles, opened in Los Angeles, on this date.



This movie is one of Martin Scorsese's favorite Alfred Hitchcock movies, and was an influence on Scorese's Taxi Driver.


December 23, 1964 -
The Beach Boys made their first appearance on ABC-TV’s musical variety series Shindig!, on this date



The performance was tape on December 14th. Besides Little Saint Nick, the band went on to perform Dance, Dance, Dance, Monster Mash, Papa Oom Mow Mow, Johnny B. Goode,and We Three Kings of Orient Are. (Only hours before the show airs, Brian Wilson unfortunately suffered his first nervous breakdown on a flight from Los Angeles to Houston, in front of his horrified family.)


December 23, 1989 –
Phil Collins single Another Day In Paradise started a four week run at No. 1 on the US singles, on this date. Taken from his No. 1 album >…But Seriously, the song was written to bring attention to the problem of homelessness.



Collins told The New York Times how the song came together: “It was begun at the piano. I started playing and put it down on a tape so I wouldn’t forget it. Then I decided to see what would happen when I started singing. When I began, the words just came out, ‘She calls out to the man on the street.’ I didn’t set out to write a song about the homeless. Those were just the words I happened to sing. It was only then that I decided that was what the song would be about."


A surprize guest programmer - so scream really loud


Today in History:
December 23, 1690 -
Royal British astronomer John Flamsteed made the first sighting of Uranus by an astronomer on this date. Unfortunately, he didn't know what he was looking at, and classified it as a star: so yes, he didn't know Uranus from a star (I couldn't help myself.)

The 7th planet – Uranus – was 'officially' discovered on March 13, 1781, once again, completely by accident. British astronomer William Herschel was performing a survey of all the stars that were of magnitude 8 (too faint to see with the eye – or brighter.) He noticed an object that moved in front of the star background over time, clearly demonstrating it was closer to us than the distant stars. At first he thought he had found a comet, but later realized this object was a new planet in orbit around the Sun.


December 23, 1750 -
Benjamin Franklin was severely shocked while electrocuting a turkey on this date. Franklin believed electrocuting the turkey would make it more tender.

Lost in the annals of history is the crime the fowl committed.


December 23, 1823 -
The famous poem A Visit From St. Nicholas was first published on this date. It begins, Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house / Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse ....



Fourteen years after its first publication, an editor attributed the poem to a wealthy professor of classical literature named Clement Clarke Moore.



In the last few years, new evidence has come out that a Revolutionary War major named Henry Livingston Jr. may have been the actual author of The Night Before Christmas.



His family has letters describing his recitation of the poem before it was originally published, and literary scholars have found many similarities between his work and The Night Before Christmas. He was also three quarters Dutch, and many of the details in the poem, including names of the reindeer, have Dutch origins.


December 23, 1888 -
After an argument with fellow painter Paul Gauguin, Vincent van Gogh took a razor and removes a portion of his left ear. Their quarrel regarded the prostitutes in Arles who seemed to prefer Gauguin over Van Gogh; the painter delivered his ear a startled prostitute. She fainted.



Some women get very emotional when they receive that special gift.


December 23, 1938 -
The Coelacanth is one of the oldest living fish, and was thought to have gone extinct some 60 million years before Museum curator Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer discovered the fish among the catch of a local angler, Captain Hendrick Goosen who caught one off the coast of South Africa on this date.



Since that time, more than 200 Coelacanths have been caught. It is one of the textbook examples of a "living fossil."


December 23, 1947 -
The transistor was successfully demonstrated on at Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, New Jersey, on this date.



Bell Labs is the research arm of American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T). The three individuals credited with the invention of the transistor were William Shockley, John Bardeen, and Walter Brattain.


December 23, 1948 -
Japanese Premier Tojo and six others were hanged by the War Crimes Commission at Sugamo Prison, Tokyo, for the crime of starting an aggressive war on this date.



Now, that's not a necktie you want for Christmas.


December 23, 1954 -
The first successful kidney transplant between living patients were undertaken was performed by Dr. Joseph E. Murray at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston on this date.



Murray and his assistants removed one of Robert Herrick's kidneys and grafted it into his twin brother, Richard, who was dying of kidney failure. Richard Herrick made a successful recovery and lived another eight years.


December 23, 1968 -
On the first day of the first flight ever by astronauts to orbit the Moon, Apollo 8 commander Frank Borman suffers from the first documented case of motion sickness. Previous astronauts had reported nothing -- partly because their ships were too small for them to move around a lot and get queasy, partly because they kept their mouths shut for fear they'd never fly again.

There is nothing worse than barfing into your own spacesuit.

Oh, wait a minute, yes there is - barfing into someone else's spacesuit.


December 23, 1972 –
Franco Harris of the Pittsburgh Steelers grabbed a deflected pass from quarterback Terry Bradshaw to score a touchdown, winning the game for the Steelers 13-7 over the Oakland Raiders, on this date.



The NFL’s Immaculate Reception, as it has become to be known, is one of the most famous plays in the history of American football.


December 23, 1986 -
Piloted by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager (no relation to Chuck Yeager), the Rutan Voyager became the first aircraft to fly around the world without stopping or refueling, landing at California's Edwards Air Force Base after a nine-day trip on this date.



They covered 24,986 miles, more than doubling the old distance record set by a Boeing B-52 bomber in 1962 — a world record that remains unchallenged today.


December 23, 1985 -
In a Lutheran school playground, James Vance and Raymond Belknap acted upon a drunken suicide pact forged while listening to Stained Class by Judas Priest. Belknap shot a 12 gauge shotgun under his chin, dying instantly, and Vance followed, but survived with a severely disfigured face. He later dies from painkillers on Thanksgiving three years later. Both kids' parents file suit against the band, but a judge ultimately rejects their subliminal message theory.



I believe anyone would kill themselves being forced to listen to Judas Priest, but that's just me.


December 23, 2009 -
The man who triggered a major alert by falsely claiming that his son was adrift in a helium balloon has been sentenced to ninety days in jail, and his wife to twenty, on this date. Richard Heene, and his wife Mayumi, said in October that their son had been carried off by the balloon.



The boy was eventually found hiding at home. Heene apologised to rescue workers and the community in the Colorado courtroom. The judge ordered four years of supervised probation for the couple and banned them from receiving any form of financial benefit from the case.

And so it goes

I guess I needed the extra sleep

(Sorry for being late again)

Ok bunkies, today is the fourth and last Sunday of the Advent season. The day is called the Fourth Sunday of Advent, sorry no fancy french or latin name.

The fourth candle is often called the Angel candle. It represents the messengers who announced the birth of the Messiah.

Go talk to the old ladies in the back of the church about your new found knowledge.


December 22, 1932 -
Universal Pictures released the horror film The Mummy, directed by Karl Freund and starring Boris Karloff on this date.



Boris Karloff was virtually unknown when he appeared as the creature in Frankenstein. He created such a sensation that when this was made, only a year later, Universal only had to advertise "KARLOFF . . . 'The Mummy'."


December 22, 1944 -
The Mummy's Curse, the follow-up film to The Mummy's Ghost was released by Universal Pictures on this date.



The famous sequence in which Princess Ananka (Virginia Christine) rises from the dead in the swamp is slightly undercranked - a process that speeds up the action - which gives an eerie, unreal quality to her movements. The trick is given away by the overly fast movements of the branches around her.


December 22, 1948 -
The film version of Maxwell Anderson's play (Joan of Lorraine,) Joan of Arc, starring Ingrid Bergman opened in Los Angeles on this date.



According to some biographies of Ingrid Bergman, Howard Hughes saved her from possible injury during a visit to the set when she fell off her horse. He caught her, but rather awkwardly, with one hand firmly on her crotch.

Shades of the president elect ...


December 22 1958 -
The song by Dave Seville and The Chipmunks, The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don’t Be Late), hit No. 1 on the Billboard charts, on this date, and stayed there for four weeks.  (Sorry about the ear worm.)



The song, written and performed by Ross Bagdasarian Sr. (a.k.a. David Seville) who varied the tape speeds to produce high-pitched chipmunk voices, went on to win three Grammy Awards.


December 22, 1959 -
Joseph L. Mankiewicz' film version of Tennesse Williams' strange one act play (about rape, incest, homosexuality, and cannibalism - I know that was probably a huge selling point,) Suddenly, Last Summer, premiered on this date.



In Catherine Holly's climactic monologue, Elizabeth Taylor (who had recently been widowed) used the emotions of her husband's death in order to create the acclaimed performance. However, she was only able to do one take as she could not stop crying after completing the first.


December 22, 1965 -
David Lean's Russian epic, Dr Zhivago, starring Omar Sharif, Julie Christie, Geraldine Chaplin, Tom Courtenay, Rod Steiger, Alec Guinness, Ralph Richardson, Siobhán McKenna, and Rita Tushingham, premiered in the US, on this date.



Critics tore the film apart upon release. Newsweek commented about "hack-job sets" and "pallid photography". Director David Lean was so deeply affected that he swore he would never make another movie. Thanks in part to MGM's marketing campaign and strong word of mouth, this became the second highest-grossing movie of 1965, behind The Sound of Music.


December 22, 1975 -
A beautiful study of love and madness (and the razor's edge between them), L'histoire d'Adele H, opened in the US on this date.



Initially planned as a grand-scale spectacular drama with Jeanne Moreau to play the lead, then Catherine Deneuve (then having an affair with François Truffaut) was considered for the role. The film took 7 years to be made, and finally Truffaut decided on Isabelle Adjani whom he noticed on a TV broadcast of the Comédie Française.


December 22, 1975 -
Archie Bunker's "little girl" Gloria gave birth to a son, Joseph Michael Stivic, on CBS's All in the Family, on this date.



The birth occurred in the second part of a two-part episode, The Baby, which begins with Edith and Archie (Jean Stapleton and Carroll O'Connor) beating Mike and Gloria (Rob Reiner and Sally Struthers) to the hospital — with Archie, who had been scheduled to appear in a skit at his lodge, arriving in black face.


December 22, 2000 -
Joel and Ethan Coen's purported adaptation of The Odyssey, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, starring George Clooney, John Turturro, Tim Blake Nelson, Chris Thomas King, John Goodman, Holly Hunter, and Charles Durning, premiered in the US on this date.



George Clooney, upon reading the script did not immediately understand his character and so sent the script to his uncle Jack, a tobacco farmer who lived in Kentucky, and asked him to read the entire script into a tape recorder. Unknown to Clooney, in his recording, Jack, a devout Baptist, omitted all instances of the words "damn" and "hell" from the Coens' script, which only became known to Clooney after the directors pointed this out to him in the middle of shooting. Jack had never been on a plane before flying in for the premiere.


Today's holiday special - Celebrate the music, not the man.


Today in History:
December 22, 1879 -
It's Stalin's birthday (again)! Hey, when you're a dictator, you get to celebrate your birthday on more than one day. Unfortunately, the proper way to celebrate - oppress, torture and murder millions of your fellow country men - is frowned upon.



So smack someone upside the head for no reason.


December 22, 1894 -
Claude Debussy's symphonic poem for orchestra Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune (L. 86), known in English as Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, was first performed in Paris on this date.



It is considered a turning point in the history of Western art music. Please feel proud as punch for knowing that - offer yourself a Peppermint Patty.


December 22, 1937 -
The Lincoln Tunnel was originally proposed in the late 1920s and early 1930s as the Midtown Hudson Tunnel. The tubes of the Lincoln Tunnel were constructed in stages between 1934 and 1957. The center tube of the Lincoln Tunnel was opened to traffic today, charging 50¢ per passenger car.



Some of those cars are still trying to get through the tunnel.


December 22, 1940 -
Strange death of the day - Author Nathanael West and his wife, Eileen McKenney, died in an auto accident on this date.

Distraught over hearing of his friend's F. Scott Fitzgerald's death (who passed away a few days earlier of a massive heart attack,) he crashed his car after ignoring a stop sign.


December 22, 1955 -
The corpse of Evita Peron was stolen by anti-Peronistas on this date. For 26 years, her corpse makes a world-wind turn before it's returned for burial in Buenos Aires.

30 years later (to the day), Madonna's Like a Virgin single goes #1 for weeks.



Make of the coincidence what you will.


December 22, 1971 -
The renown international aid group Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières) was founded by Bernard Kouchner and a group of journalists in Paris on this date. One of their first missions after its formation in Paris was to Afghanistan in 1980.



Doctors Without Borders was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1999, and within the past two years coordinated more than 30,000 personnel — mostly volunteer medical professionals — to treat the poor and war-ravaged population in 70 countries.


December 22, 1977 -
File this under: Yes Virginia, there are Christmas miracles.
Thomas Helms, a 27-year-old artist from Hawaii, climbed to the edge of the observation deck on the eighty-sixth floor of the Empire State Building, and jumped, intending to kill himself on the streets 1000s of feet below.

But the winds blew him onto a narrow ledge on the 85th floor. Helms suffered no major injuries but was knocked unconscious for half-an-hour - adequate time for an emergency crew to bring him safely inside. He is only one of two people who have jumped from the observation deck of the Empire State Building, intending to commit suicide, and survived. The other being Elvita Adams, who survived her attempt in 1979.


December 22, 1984 -
Bernhard Goetz shot four teenage boys on the NYC subway after one of them asks him for money.



Again, this practice is frowned upon, so instead, smack someone upside the head.


December 22, 2001 -
Richard Reid attempted to blow up an American Airlines transatlantic flight by igniting a plastic explosive concealed in his shoe. Other passengers beat the living daylights out of him.



They knew - they smacked him upside the head.

And so it goes