October 5, 1950 -
You Bet Your Life, hosted by Groucho Marx with his announcer George Fenneman, premiered on NBC TV on this date. Its' run lasted 11 years.
Reportedly, the reason why this show was prerecorded for broadcast was because the network was afraid that Groucho Marx's ad-libs would run afoul of the censors. In reality, another reason was to condense the interviews to fit the allotted time with the most entertaining material Groucho was able to generate with them.
October 5, 1956 -
The huge, hulking, biblical spectacular, The Ten Commandments (the last film directed by the master showman, Cecil B Demille) opened on this date.
Cecil B. DeMille suffered a heart attack during the production after climbing 130 feet to check a faulty camera perched on one of the giant gates used during the exodus sequence, as it was occurring. He took two of days off and then, against his doctor's orders, returned to work to complete the film.
October 5, 1961 -
Blake Edwards' adaptation of Truman Capote's novel, Breakfast at Tiffany's, premiered at Radio City Music Hall in New York City on this date.
Blake Edwards said that when the movie was made, he didn't think about the implications of casting a white actor, Mickey Rooney, in a role as a Japanese person, but "looking back, I wish I had never done it... and I would give anything to be able to recast it."
October 5, 1962 -
Parlophone Records released the Beatles first single, Love Me Do, in England on this date. (The b side was, P.S., I Love You.)
By 1962, The Beatles were playing regular gigs at a club in Hamburg, Germany. They played a lot of Blues covers by famous American artists, and it was a big deal for them when they introduced this into their set, as they didn't know how it would hold up against songs by Little Richard and Ray Charles. The song was well-received and gave The Beatles a lot of confidence, which led to them writing and performing more original songs.
October 5, 1969 -
The British Empire had been on a long slow decline for many years. The last flourish of that dying world power happened on this date - Monty Python's Flying Circus made its debut on BBC-TV.
According to John Cleese, when he and the fellow Pythons were pitching the show to the BBC, they went into a meeting having not prepared anything. When asked what the show would be about and feature, they reportedly stated that the show would be a "comedy, with some skits in it".
October 5, 1990 -
Henry & June, the first NC-17-rated film was released in the US on this date.
This movie precipitated the creation of the NC-17 MPAA rating, which it earned in place of an "X". The two to three second shot of Anais looking at an explicit illustrated postcard involving a Japanese woman and a squid, less than three minutes into the opening credits of the film, was the cause of the NC-17 rating.
Today in History:
October 5, 1877 -
... I am tired of fighting. Our chiefs are killed; Looking-glass is dead. Too-hul-hul-suit is dead. The old men are all dead. It is the young men, now, who say ’yes’ or ’no’[that is, vote in council]. He who led on the young men [Joseph’s brother, Ollicut] is dead. It is cold, and we have no blankets. The little children are freezing to death. My people--some of them--have run away to the hills, and have no blankets, no food. No one knows where they are---perhaps freezing to death. I want to have time to look for my children, and see how many of them I can find;maybe I shall find them among the dead. Hear me, my chiefs; my heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever! ....
Chief Joseph, exhausted and disheartened, surrendered in the Bears Paw Mountains of Montana, forty miles south of Canada ending the Nez Percé war. Thunder Rolling Down the Mountain was born in 1840 in the Wallowa Valley of what is now northeastern Oregon. He took the name of his father, (Old) Chief Joseph or Joseph the Elder. When his father died in 1871, Joseph or Joseph the Younger, was elected his father's successor. He continued his father's efforts to secure the Nez Percé claim to their land while remaining peaceful towards the whites.
October 5, 1902 -
Ray Kroc was born on this date.
Mr Kroc invented McDonalds, which caused the collapse of the Soviet Union and made us all fat, allowing us to buy sub prime mortgage properties, which ultimate will bring down the United States as a dominant world power.
October 5, 1970 -
PBS became a network on this date.
Unlike the model of America's commercial television networks, in which affiliates give up portions of their local advertising airtime in exchange for network programming, PBS member stations pay substantial fees for the shows acquired and distributed by the national organization.
October 5, 1974 -
David Kunst left Waseca, Minnesota on June 20, 1970 and completed the first journey around the world on foot, returning to Waseca, Minnesota, on this date, four years, three months and sixteen days later.
He crossed four continents, walked 14,450 miles and went through 21 pairs of shoes. On October 21, 1972, he and his brother were shot during their portion of the trek through Afghanistan (his brother, John, was unfortunately killed in the incident.) After four months of recuperation, Dave continued on his walk with his other brother Pete.
October 5, 1989 -
Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, the 14th Dalai Lama (Tenzin Gyatso), was named the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize for nonviolent efforts to free his homeland from China.
The Committee’s citation read, “The Committee wants to emphasize the fact that the Dalai Lama in his struggle for the liberation of Tibet consistently has opposed the use of violence. He has instead advocated peaceful solutions based upon tolerance and mutual respect in order to preserve the historical and cultural heritage of his people.”
Oh great, I keep blowing my chance of being read in China.
And so it goes.
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