March 2, 1933 -
In the original film, the character's name is Kong -- a name given to him by the inhabitants of "Skull Island" in the Indian Ocean, where Kong lived along with other over-sized animals such as a plesiosaur, pterosaurs, and dinosaurs. 'King' is an appellation added by an American film crew led by Carl Denham, who captures Kong and takes him to New York City to be exhibited as the "Eighth Wonder of the World".
Kong escapes and climbs the Empire State Building (the World Trade Center in the 1976 remake) where he is shot and killed by aircraft. Nevertheless, "it was beauty who killed the beast", as he only climbed the building in the first place in an attempt to protect the lead female character Ann Darrow.
The film saved RKO Studios from bankruptcy.
March 2, 1935 -
One of the earliest Technicolor Merrie Melodies cartoon, I Haven't Got A Hat, directed by Friz Freleng and featuring the debut of Porky Pig and Beans the Cat (a minor Looney Tunes character from the '30s,) premiered on this date.
Struggling against other animation studios, Warner Bros. were desperate to find a character as successful as major studios' mascots, such as Disney's Mickey Mouse, Fleischer Studios' Betty Boop and Felix the Cat, and so Freleng designed several potential characters, Little Kitty, Beans, Ham and Ex, Oliver Owl, and Porky Pig.
March 2, 1939 -
The first of many collaborations between John Ford and John Wayne, Stagecoach, went into general release on this date.
The hat that John Wayne wears was his own. He would wear it in many westerns during the next two decades before retiring it after Howard Hawks' Rio Bravo because it was simply "falling apart." After that, the hat was displayed under glass in his home.
March 2, 1940 -
The Looney Tunes short, Elmer's Candid Camera, directed by Chuck Jones, and featuring the newly redesigned Elmer Fudd for the first time, premiered on this date.
Elmer Fudd evolved from Egghead, a character created by Tex Avery in the mid-'30s. In this cartoon, Elmer still wears the same attire (derby hat, high collar, green coat) as Egghead, and sports a large, bulbous nose, which was one of Egghead's distinguishing traits.
March 2, 1965 -
The movie version of Rodgers and Hammerstein's musical The Sound of Music, starring Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer, had its world premiere at New York's Rivoli Theater on this date.
When Maria is running through the courtyard to the Von Trapp house in I Have Confidence, she trips. This was an accident. However, director Robert Wise liked this so much that he kept it in the movie. He felt it added to the nervousness of the song and of the character.
March 2, 1967 -
The Star Trek episode This Side of Paradise first aired on NBC TV on this date.
Some of Spock's family background is fleshed out in the episode with references to his half-human heritage. The episode also first reveals that Spock's father is an Ambassador, which would be depicted in later stories. Spock's mother is said to be a teacher, but there would be no further details or depictions of her career.
March 2, 1984 -
Rob Reiner's seminal mockumentary, This Is Spinal Tap starring Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, Harry Shearer and a bunch of other great actors premiered in the US on this date.
37 different people have been in the band over the years. Excluding the two original members, one keyboard player, and the original and current bass players, that means the band has had 32 different drummers who inexplicably died.
March 2, 1987 -
The long-planned collaboration between Linda Ronstadt, Emmylou Harris and Dolly Parton, The Trio album, was released on this date.
The album sold over 4 million copies and won the Grammy Award for Best Country Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocal.
March 2, 1989 -
Like A Prayer became the first hit song to debut in a commercial when it is used in a 2-minute Pepsi ad starring Madonna.
The spot is called "Make A Wish," and shows Madonna watching her 8-year-old self at her birthday party. The commercial airs in prime time around the world, the Pepsi people claimed that 250 million viewers saw the ad, and that they were clearly the choice of the younger generation, as their partnerships with Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson, and now Madonna, demonstrated. Unfortunately (for Pepsi) the commercial is never broadcast again because the next day, the video was released, and in it, Madonna kisses a black man and dances in front of burning crosses - not what Pepsi had in mind.
March 2, 1990 -
Paramount Pictures released the submarine thriller, based on the Tom Clancy novel of the same name, The Hunt for Red October, starring Sean Connery (with the worst attempt at a Russian accept ever), Alec Baldwin, Scott Glenn, James Earl Jones, and Sam Neill, on this date.
After being faxed the script, Sean Connery initially turned the role down on the basis of the plot being unrealistic for the post-Cold War era. Whoever sent the fax neglected to include the foreword, explaining the movie as historical. Once he received the foreword, Connery accepted the role.
March 2, 1991 -
Chris Isaak's single Wicked Game reached the #6 position on the US Billboard charts, on this date.
Lee Chesnut, who was music director of an Atlanta radio station and a huge fan of David Lynch films, helped popularize this song when he added it to his playlist after watching Wild At Heart. The song gradually gained an audience and charted in the US 18 months after Isaak's album Heart Shaped World was released.
March 2, 2009 -
In 2013, Fallon was selected by NBC to succeed the continually retiring Jay Leno as host of The Tonight Show. The last episode of Late Night under Fallon aired one night after Leno's final episode of The Tonight Show on February 6, 2014. Most of the cast and crew immediately began working on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, which premiered on February 17, 2014. Seth Meyers was named as Fallon's replacement, and Late Night with Seth Meyers debuted February 24, 2014.
Another ACME Safety Film
Today in History -
When he was a young man, no one knew for sure if Nicholas I of Russia, the son of Paul I, was Czar, Tsar, or Tzar. It was hard to know anything at all about someone whose last name was a vowel, especially when he lived in a hermitage. Nicholas was therefore as confused as he was powerful, which inevitably led to his becoming an Evil Bastard.
He didn't realize what an Evil Bastard he'd become until he lost the Crimean War, however, at which point he discovered that in addition to being Evil he was also an Incompetent Bastard. This made him Autocratic and he therefore died on March 2, 1855.
His first son Alexander, was left to ponder all of this when he became Alexander II on the same day.
March 2, 1882 -
Queen Victoria was a much beloved monarch, except by her would-be assassins. The queen escaped another assassination attempt on this date. Roderick Maclean, the final in a series of eight malcontents over the course of her very long reign, took a shot at the queen as her carriage pulled away from Windsor railway station after she refused to accept one of his poems.
He was beaten back by two schoolboys with umbrellas and arrested by Superintendent Hayes of the Windsor Police. He was tried for high treason but found not guilty but insane and sent to an asylum.
March 2, 1900 -
It seems to me that the American popular song, growing out of American folk music, is the basis of the American musical theater… it is quite legitimate to use the form of the popular song and gradually fill it out with new musical content.
Kurt Weill, composer, Brecht and Gershwin collaborator, was born in Dessau, Germany on this date.
Theodor Seuss Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss, was born 119 years ago today, on March 2, 1904. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1984, and is one of only a few men in history to have written illustrated books in verse about a pedophiliac cat.
You can hardly blame the guy for changing his name. (Remember it's National Read Across America Day in honor of Dr. Seuss.)
On March 2, 1931, Mikhail Gorbachev was born with a big red splotch on his head, so he got right into politics. Mr. Gorbachev was the last Evil Bastard to reign over the Soviet Empire. Fortunately, he was also Bumbling Bastard, and his invention of glasnost and perestroika accidentally made walls fall down in Germany.
This caused Boris Yeltsin to ride on top of a tank and was therefore historical.
March 2, 1939 -
Howard Carter died of King Tut's curse on this date.
But dammit remember there is no mummy's curse.
March 2, 1944 -
A train of mixed military/civilian passengers (Train #8017) stalls inside a tunnel outside Salerno, Italy, asphyxiating 426 from fumes. Authorities question Mussolini on the necessities of have trains run on a timely basis to meet ones death in such an unpleasant manner.
But he was having his own problems at the time.
March 2, 1944 -
Music should come crashing out of your speakers and grab you, and the lyrics should challenge whatever preconceived notions that listener has.
Lewis Allan Lou Reed singer, songwriter, poet and guitarist was born (on the wild side.)
March 2, 1949 –
Captain James Gallagher landed his B-50 Superfortress, Lucky Lady II in Fort Worth, Texas on this date after completing the first non-stop around-the-world airplane flight in 94 hours and one minute.
En route, the aircraft was refueled four times near Lajes Air Force Base in the Azores, Dhahran Airfield in Saudi Arabia, Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines, and Hickam Air Force Base in Hawaii, using the soon-to-be obsolete grappled-line looped-hose technique.
March 2, 1968 -
Syd Barrett left Pink Floyd, after melting his mind with various extremely dangerous drugs on this date. He spends the following years mumbling about pork chops and refrigerators.
A very good biography about Syd Barrett, A Very Irregular Head, came a few years ago.
March 2, 1982 -
Science fiction author Philip K Dick died of a stroke in Santa Ana, California on this date. Since 1974 the author had been possessed by a superalien who arrived in his head via a beam of pink light.
It has been suggested that Mr Dick and Mr Barrett had been in regular communication via the pork chops in his refrigerator.
March 2, 1997 -
Don P. Wolf and a team of researchers at the Oregon National Primate Research Center announced that they had produced rhesus monkeys from cloned embryos, the first successful use of cloning-related technology in primates.
And so it goes.
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