Saturday, September 13, 2014

Remember - Never eat your partner

A long, long time ago (yesterday) Sesame Street came out with another parody of Star Wars - Star S'Mores



Trust me- I don't watch Sesame Street often.


September 13, 1965 -
The Beatles released the single Yesterday in the US on this date (Act Naturally was on the B side.)



This is the most covered pop song of all time, over 3,000 versions recorded according to The Guinness Book Of World Records. For years, it was also the song with the most radio plays, but in 1999 BMI music publishing reported that You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin' had passed it. Still, at any given time, some version of Yesterday is probably being broadcast somewhere.


September 13, 1969 -
Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! made its CBS network debut on this date.



Shaggy is the only character (apart from Scooby himself) to be in every incarnation of the series.


September 11, 1974 -
The science fiction/ horror series Kolchak: The Night Stalker premiered on ABC-TV on this date.



The series was cancelled because Darren McGavin asked to be released from his contract. He became disappointed with the series' scripts and was exhausted from his uncredited producing duties. Three scripts were left unproduced. Two of them were adapted into a "Kolchak" series of comic books in 2003.


September 13, 1974 -
The Rockford Files, starring James Garner, was first broadcast on NBC-TV on this date.



Rockford's telephone number is shown to be 555-2368 during the opening credits, as his answering machine message is heard just before the music starts. This was also the phone number shown for the Ghostbusters in their in-movie ad.


September 13, 1996 -
The family comedy based on the stand-up routines of Ray Romano, Everybody Loves Raymond, starring Ray Romano, Patricia Heaton  Brad Garrett, Doris Roberts and Peter Boyle, premiered on CBS-TV on this date.



Peter Boyle claims that he was aided in getting the part of Frank Barone by events prior to his audition in New York City. He had gotten lost and couldn't find the location of the audition, so when he showed up, he was agitated and sarcastic.


September 13, 2000 -
Cameron Crowe's
autobiographic film, Almost Famous, was released on this date.



When Cameron Crowe's mother appeared on the set for a cameo, Crowe made every effort to keep her away from Frances McDormand, who was playing a character based on her, so McDormand's interpretation of the part wouldn't be swayed. When he left the set for a few minutes on the first day of shooting, he returned to find McDormand and his mother having lunch together.


Today in History:
September 13, 1848 -

A 13-pound tamping iron is blown through the head of railroad construction foreman Phineas P. Gage, entering beneath the left cheekbone and exiting the top of his head. The metal bar lands 30 yards away, taking with it much of his left frontal lobe.



Gage never loses consciousness, even while the doctors examine his wound. Two months later, he is well enough to return home and resume an active life of work and travel.



The steel rod, along with a cast of Gage's head, and his skull, are now on display at Harvard Medical School's Warren Anatomical Museum.


September 13, 1899 -
Henry M. Bliss
was coming home from work today and never came back. Mr. Bliss was enjoying his ride home near Central Park and 74th Street, when he stepped out of a streetcar and into the street and was struck by a taxicab. Bliss was rushed to a hospital but died from his injuries the next morning.

The cab driver Arthur Smith was arrested and charged with manslaughter. The charges were dropped after it was determined that Bliss’ death was unintentional. Bliss became the first pedestrian to be killed by an automobile in the United States.

On September 13, 1999, a hundred years to the day, Citystreets unveiled a historical marker at the site of the first American Pedestrian Fatality.


September 13, 1916 -
Mary the circus elephant was publicly executed in the Erwin, Tennessee railyard, after killing a drifter named Walter "Red" Eldridge the previous day.



The five-ton animal was hanged from a derrick car in front of 3,000 onlookers, and left hanging for half an hour.

Give the people what they want ... (Please folks, I am not encouraging the execution of any animal, especially mammals weighing over five tons.)


September 13, 1916 -



Roald Dahl was born on this date in Llandaff, South Wales. He was sent off to private boarding schools as a kid, which he hated except for the chocolates, Cadbury chocolates. The Cadbury chocolate company had chosen his school as a focus group for new candies they were developing. Every so often, a plain gray cardboard box was issued to each child, filled with eleven chocolate bars. It was the children's task to rate the candy, and Dahl took his job very seriously. About one of the sample candy bars, he wrote, "Too subtle for the common palate." He later said that the experience got him thinking about candy as something manufactured in a factory, and he spent a lot of time imagining what a candy factory might be like.



Today, he's best known for his children's book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and for the fact he ran off with his children's nanny after his wife, the actress Patricia Neal, recovered from a stroke. But even more interesting, a recently published biography of Dahl, purports that he was a spy for the British government during World War II, paid to sleep with wealthy U. S. women to gain information for the British government.

And you thought only 007 had a way with women.


September 13, 1940 -
The German Luftwaffe directly targeted Buckingham Palace during 'the Blitz' and dropped a bomb into the palace courtyard and detonated on impact on this date. The force of the explosion blew out all the inside windows of the palace. No one was seriously hurt and had the unintended effect of bonding the Royal Family with the people of England, as the Windsors did not evacuate London.



Queen Elizabeth (the queen's mother) narrowly averted serious injury and when asked about the incident said, "I am glad we have been bombed….it makes me feel like I can look the [heavily bombed] East End in the face."



And so it goes

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