Monday, December 10, 2012

(Dingle, dangle. Dingle, dangle.)

Another PSA from your friends at ACME. Please put down all beverages and remain in a seated position while viewing this safety video -



hilarity may ensue. 


It been 28 years since Do They Know It's Christmas, the charity single by the all-star group Band Aid, was released.



No, they still don't have a clue (they're not christians.) As of the last check, The Band Aid/ Live Aid initiatives have raised over $200 million dollars. Not bad for basically a very crappy tune.

Today's Holiday special: Home with the family

December 10, 1948 -
Another Preston Sturges Champagne cocktail laced with strychnine, Unfaithfully Yours, opened in the US on this date.



At one point the detective mentions "that Italian guy". He is referring to Arturo Toscanini, one of the world's most famous conductors, who at that time led the NBC Symphony Orchestra in weekly concerts on radio.


December 10, 1967 -
Julie Andrews!!!

Peter Cook and Dudley Moore in their first starring comedy, Bedazzled, opened in the US on this date.



Dudley Moore adopted the moniker Stanley Moon in this film after John Gielgud wrote him a letter of introduction because he was impressed with Moore's work in the stage revue "Beyond the Fringe". Gielgud obliviously referred to Moore as Stanley Moon in the letter, and an amused Moore adopted the name as an alter ego for the rest of his life.


Dember 10, 1974 -
The gravitational pull of Planet Angora remains quite strong



Ed Wood Jr., either the world's greatest visionary director or the worst filmmaker of all time, suffered a fatal heart attack on this date. At the time of his death, the industry newspaper, Variety, failed to run his obituary.


December 10, 1974
The classic disaster movie, Towering Inferno, opened in NYC on this date.



The film was based on two novels: The Tower by Richard Martin Stern, and The Glass Inferno by Thomas N. Scortia and Frank M. Robinson. Scriptwriter Stirling Silliphant combined the two novels to create one screenplay. The combined three words that make up the titles of the two novels were combined to give the name of the film, and the name of the building that is on fire (The Glass Tower).


December 10, 1982 -
A paean to B movies, It Came from Hollywood, opened in the US on this date.



Sadly this was never released on DVD. Paramount had planned to release the film on DVD in 2002. Due to copyright issues with several of the clips featured in the film, the release was ultimately canceled.

(I can't believe that I've found it online;  find some time today to watch the whole film if you haven't seen it.)


December 10, 1984
On a very cold night in NYC 28 years ago, Francis Ford Coppola's Cotton Club opened in NYC. I can remember waiting on line to see the film on the opening day.



Relations were so strained between director Francis Ford Coppola and producer Robert Evans that Coppola had Evans banned from the set. This film had so many extras that I truly believe every actor in NYC had this film on their resume


Today in History:
December 10, 1520 -
The heretic Martin Luther burnt the papal bull (Exsurge Domine), on this date, issued by Leo X, demanding an end to his heresies. Luther had published 95 points against the practice of granting indulgences, and the Catholic Church only had 94 points in favor of them.



Although technically he was the winner, Luther was subsequently excommunicated.

Luther went away mad and started his own religion.


December 10, 1848 -
Napoleon III, Louis Napoleon Bonaparte (nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte), was elected president of France. By 1852, he dismantled the Republic and replaced it with the Second Empire of France, with himself as emperor.



This is what comes from being a Napoleon - give them an inch and they're declaring themselves emperor.


December 10, 1936 -
Edward VIII, abdicated the English throne to marry the twice divorced, horsey faced (and possibly transvestite)  - the woman he loved on this date.



Many in the government are secretly relieved, fearing they may have bet against Mrs. Simpson when she ran at the Royal Ascot.


December 10, 1958 -
Krishna Venta (born Francis Herman Pencovic) died in Chatsworth, California in a suicide bombing when two disgruntled former followers (Peter Duma Kamenoff and Ralph Muller) who, although never offering any documentary evidence to support their claims, charged that Venta had both mishandled cult funds and been intimate with their wives.


Venta's remains are only ever identified through dental records.

This is what comes from the laying on of hands with cult members' wives.


December 10, 1967 -
Soul singer Otis Redding plus four members of the Bar-Kays were killed when his airplane crashes into Lake Monona near Madison, Wisconsin on this date.



So, poor Otis was laid out all over the dock of the bay.


December 10, 1993 -
Adolf Hitler was baptized by proxy into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in their London temple on this date. Mormons also continued to vicariously baptism victims of the Holocaust over the strenuous objections of various Jewish groups such as the Simon Wiesenthal Center (even Simon Wiesenthal has had a baptism performed for himself after his death.)


There's nothing worse than finding out you've become a Mormon by proxy (especially if you're already dead and in heaven.)


15 more shopping days until Christmas, and the world may just be over in 11 days.

The world may end in 11 day but this could be the greatest video I've ever seen:



This will become the new standard corollary to stop and smell the rose; stop and jump in every puddle!



And so it goes.

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