You think your tree is big?

According to The Guinness Book of World Records (now known as Guinness World Records), on November 24, 1950, officials at the newly built Northgate Center light the world's tallest Christmas tree. At an amazing 212-foot-tall, as of this year, the record still stands.

The L.A. Times, citing a 1950 Life magazine article and the Bureau of Labor Statistics consumer price index inflation calculator, reported the tree cost $19,000 at the time and $185,000 when adjusted.


It's the Fifth Night of Hanukkah.

The fifth night is an important one because it is the first night where the majority of the candles are lit. It's a representation of light and darkness, as well as resilience and endurance.



Here's another Hanukkah gift from your ole friend, the doctor - As I always tell you, continue to invest in Pfizer stock, the maker of Lipitor as well as a COVID vaccine.


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.



According to actress Virginia Christine, when Lon Chaney Jr. carried her, she was attached to a harness that went around his neck and her waist. The actress has stated that Chaney was drunk through most of the picture. In the scenes where he carries her up the steep, crooked, worn steps of the shrine, "he is absolutely stoned" and was "weaving , going side-to-side on these uneven steps." Because they were attached, Christine was concerned what would happen if the inebriated, husky Chaney fell. She was very relieved when the director stopped the shoot and replaced Chaney with a stand-in.


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 Donald Trump...


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.



The filmmakers were given special dispensation by the Breen office so that the homosexuality of Sebastian Venable could be "inferred, but not shown."


December 22, 1965 -
David Lean's Russian epic, Dr Zhivago, premiered in the US, on this date.



The movie was torn apart by critics when first released. Newsweek, in particular, made comments about "hack-job sets" and "pallid photography". Director David Lean was so deeply affected by these criticisms (despite the popularity of the movie with the general public) that he swore he would never make another movie. Thanks in part to MGM's extreme marketing campaign and strong word of mouth, this movie became an spectacular success at the box-office and 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 Virginoa, 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.


Another holiday gift suggestion from the back shelves of ACME Catalogue

And so it goes