Goodbye to our old 78's
A CBS employee named Edward Wallerstein walked into a room at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York with Goddard Lieberson, the president of Columbia Records and publicly unveiled its new long-playing phonograph record, the 33 1/3, on this date.
Unlike the standard 10-inch 78 rpm record, which could play about 3 1/2 minutes on one side, the new “LP” could hold 15-plus minutes on one side of a 10-inch record and up to 25 minutes on one side of a 12-inch disc. Also, these new records were made of a vinyl compound rather than the easily breakable shellac of 78s. The larger discs were originally meant for classical music and the smaller for non-classical, but by 1955, the 10-inch LP had been superseded by the 12-inch version.
Once again,I ask you to ponder, but not too deeply, all the pleasure brought to you by that big 12".
June 18, 1956 -
The pilot episode for the quiz show To Tell the Truth premiered on CBS on this date. The series debuted on CBS on December 18, 1956.
The series outlasted most of the others of the period, especially after the 1958 quiz-show scandal, partly because every contestant was supposed to be untrustworthy.
June 18, 1959 -
Fred Zinnemann's quiet religious drama The Nun's Story, starring Audrey Hepburn, Colleen Dewhurst, Dean Jagger, Peggy Ashcroft, Peter Finch, and Edith Evans, premiered in NYC on this date.
The role of Sister Luke was suggested for Ingrid Bergman but Bergman herself said she was too old for the role and instead proposed Audrey Hepburn. This was one of Audrey Hepburn's favorite of her films. It was also one of her most financially successful.
June 18, 1966 -
The Beach Boys release the single Wouldn't It Be Nice (with God Only Knows on the flip side of the 45), on this date. Brian Wilson wrote the song with contributions from vocalist Mike Love and lyricist Tony Asher. Asher wrote all of the lyrics except for the "Good night, my baby, sleep tight, my baby" lines at the end of the song, which were Love's contribution.
Mike Love sang the bridge; Brian Wilson did the verses. Love explained in the liner notes for the Pet Sounds boxed set that Brian Wilson made him do over 30 takes singing one background section of this song. Around the 20th take, Love started affectionately calling him "dog ears," as he could hear things other humans couldn't. "Brian must have been part canine because he was reaching for something intangible, imperceptible to most, and all but impossible to execute," wrote Love.
June 18, 1969 -
Sam Peckinpah's violent western elegy, The Wild Bunch, premiered on this date.
This film has been credited with playing a significant role in the use of violence in modern cinema, establishing the limits of post-Production Code Hollywood, shaping the Motion Picture Association of America's rating system, and redefining the Western genre. Most effectively, it demystified the western and the genre's heroic and cavalier characters. Director Sam Peckinpah and Walon Green, who co-authored the script with Peckinpah, felt that this project required a realistic look at the characters of the Old West, whose actions on screen had rarely matched the violent and dastardly reality of the men on which they were based. Green summarized the authors' feelings when he said "I always liked Westerns, but I always felt they were too heroic and too glamorous. I'd read enough to know that Billy the Kid shot people in the back of the head while they were drinking coffee." Both Green and Peckinpah felt it was important to not only show that the film's protagonists were violent men, but that they achieved their violence in unheroic and horrific ways, such as using people as human shields and killing unarmed bystanders during robberies.
June 18, 1977 -
Fleetwood Mac's third single from their album Rumours, Dreams, hit the no. 1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100. Dreams sold more than one million copies and was the band's only No. 1 hit.
During the sessions for Rumours, everyone in the band was going through a breakup (Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham with each other, John and Christine McVie with each other, Mick Fleetwood with his wife Jenny Boyd) and doing a lot of drugs. They were able to work together, but most of the songwriting was on an individual basis. Stevie Nicks wrote this one in the studio next door where Sly Stone was recording. He had a big, semicircular bed and red velvet all over the walls - a great vibe for a song about romantic entanglements.
June 18, 1980 -
... We're on a mission from God.
Producers rented the Dixie Square Mall in Harvey, Illinois, for the mall chase scenes. The mall had been closed for over a year. Rumors spread in the community that the mall was being refurbished, and would be reopened after filming was complete. Universal was later sued for over $87,000 for failure to "return the mall to its original condition", something that had never been agreed upon. After years of political wrangling, the Montgomery Ward anchor store and mall power plant were demolished, while the rest of the dead mall rotted. The rest of the mall was finally torn down and cleared away in 2012.
June 18, 2001 -
The first in seemingly hundreds of installations of The Fast and the Furious franchise, starring Paul Walker, Vin Diesel, and Michelle Rodriguez premiered in the US, on this date.
Neither Michelle Rodriguez nor Jordana Brewster had driver's licenses or even learner's permits before production of the film.
June 18, 2010 -
Pixar's very successful second sequel (and surprisingly, deeply moving children's film,) Toy Story 3 premiered on this date.
For inspiration for the Sunnyside escape, the Pixar staff watched numerous prison movies. Director Lee Unkrich said, "There are a lot of prison movies out there, and I think we watched every single one of them."
Don't forget to tune in to The ACME Eagle Hand Soap Radio Hour today
Today in History:
June 18, 1155 -
Pope Adrian IV crowned Frederick I (AKA Fred Barbarossa) Holy Roman Emperor at St Peter's Basilica in Rome on this date, to the acclamation of his German army.
European history would have been dramatically different if only for a higher fiber diet.
The battle was commemorated by Swedish sensation Abba in their 1970s hit, Waterloo.
Abba's interpretation of Waterloo's significance has been controversial from the start, as it tended to focus less on the military and political implications of the battle than on the feelings of euphoria typically incited by hormonal rushes of erotic excitement.
On June 18, 1817, Waterloo Bridge was opened over the River Thames in London,
This was all in anticipation ABBA performed Dancing Queen at a televised all-star gala on this date in 1976, held at the Royal Swedish Opera in Stockholm, Sweden, on the eve of the wedding between Sweden's King Carl XVI Gustaf and Silvia Sommerlath. I'm sure the Sweden King consumes plenty of muesli and yogurt, keeping him quite regular and on the throne for these 49 years.
(This will all be on the test.)
June 18, 1900 -
The Empress Douairiere, Dowager of China orders all foreigners killed on this date. Among those meeting this fate are the foreign diplomats, their families, as well as hundreds of Christian missionaries and their Chinese converts.
June 18, 1940 -
The "This was their finest hour" speech was delivered by Sir Winston Churchill to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom on this date.
It was given shortly after he took over as Prime Minister of Britain on May 10th, in the first year of World War II.
June 18, 1940 -
Across town, on the same day, Charles de Gaulle galvanized the Free French Forces in one of the most important speeches of the 20th century, on this date. Known as L’Appel du 18 Juin (The Appeal of 18 June), it is often considered to be the origin of the French Resistance movement during the German occupation in World War II.
De Gaulle spoke to the French people from a BBC studio in London one day after the fall of France. He fled to England as his shattered government brokered an armistice deal with the advancing Nazis. He obtained special permission from Winston Churchill to broadcast a message to his countrymen—and in his speech, de Gaulle declared that the war for France was not over yet. He reminded the French people that the British Empire and the U.S. would support them militarily and economically, and it rallied the country in support of the Resistance.
June 18, 1942 -
Sir James Paul McCartney, CH, MBE, singer-songwriter, composer, multi-instrumentalist, entrepreneur, record and film producer, poet, painter, and animal rights activist, was born on this date.
McCartney is listed in Guinness World Records as the "most successful musician and composer in popular music history." And now it appears that he has been reduced to playing nostalgia tours around the world.
June 18, 1952 -
I was born with a love of animals, the same way I was born with brown hair. When I was a little girl in Rome, I always had pets, which I adored.
Isabella Rossellini, one of Hollywood's' most intelligent and beautiful actresses was born on this date.
June 18, 1959 -
Based on his erratic behavior, the Governor of Louisiana, Earl K. Long, was committed to a state mental hospital.
Long responds by arranging for the hospital's director to be fired, and the new director proclaims him perfectly sane. (It is no secret that the man was completely nuts.)
June 18, 1967 -
Famed guitarist Jimi Hendrix burnt his guitar on stage at the Monterey Pop Festival on this date.
There had to be a better way to toast marshmallows.
June 18, 1971 -
The Nike "swoosh" logo was created in 1971 by a graphic design student Carolyn Davidson and was purchased by Blue Ribbon for $35.
The intention was to convey motion in its design. it was first used by Nike on this date. (She was later given around 500 shares in the company which are now estimated to be worth over a cool $1M.)
June 18, 1983 -
Almost 20 years to the day after the USSR sent Valentina Tereshkova into orbit, the United States sent its first woman astronaut into space. Sally Ride, an astrophysicist from Stanford University, and four other colleagues lifted off aboard the space shuttle Challenger.
During the six-day mission, Ride operated the robot's arm, which she had helped design. Ms. Ride dedicated her life to be an inspiration for young women wanting to enter the field of science
And on a personal note:
One more thing before you go - as a service to our readers, ACME would like to remind you that you have time to get a better Father's Day greeting card for Dad than this one.
And so it goes.
1 comment:
a case of inflamed hemorrhoids, indeed (ouch)
Post a Comment