An update from ACME

There are 44 days until Halloween,



71 days until Thanksgiving -



There are 27 days until Canadian Thanksgiving, but we'll talk about that next month -



99 days until Christmas -



And 47 days until the General Election. Make sure that you have registered: Voting is one of your only obligations as a citizen -



While yesterday was the deadline to register, there's is still time to change your rankings on the Naughty/ Nice list. Make your plans accordingly.


September 17, 1932 -
The Looney Tunes short, Ride Him, Bosko!, directed by Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising starring Bosko, was released on this date.



Although the short ends with a cliffhanger, it is continued in Bosko's Parlor Pranks", a Happy Harmonies short produced after Harman and Ising had taken Bosko to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, where Bosko eventually gets to rescue Honey from the crazy gunmen.


September 17, 1955 -
The Merrie Melodies short, Speedy Gonzales , directed by Friz Freleng, and Speedy Gonzales and Sylvester the Cat, was released on this date.



Although this is the second appearance of Speedy Gonzales (His first outing was in Cat-Tails for Two), he was redesigned after his debut, and this is the first appearance of Speedy as he is known today.


September 17, 1956 -
Vincente Minnelli's brilliant bio-pix, Lust for Life, opened in NYC on this date.



A very young Michael Douglas and his brother ran screaming from the theater during the scene where Van Gogh severs his own ear because they believed their father, Kirk Douglas, had actually harmed himself.


September 17, 1961 -
William Faulkner's favorite TV show, Car 54 Where are You?, premiered on NBC-TV, on this date.



For the black-and-white location shots, the green parts of the normally black, white, and green patrol cars were painted red so as not to confuse the neighborhood people.


September 17, 1963 -
David Janssen started running when ABC-TV premiered The Fugitive, on this date.



Richard Kimble was originally fleeing his hometown in Wisconsin, until the producers discovered that Wisconsin did not execute murderers. The locale was quickly changed to Indiana.


September 17, 1964 -
United Artists released the third James Bond thriller (in the UK,) Goldfinger, starring Sean Connery, on this date.



Sean Connery never traveled to the United States to film this movie. Every scene in which he appears to be in the U.S. was filmed at Pinewood Studios outside London. This explains why Bond flips a light switch down to discover the golden corpse of Jill, as British light switches are generally turned on by flicking them down instead of up. According to director Guy Hamilton, Cec Linder (Felix) was the only main actor in the Miami sequence who was actually there. Connery, Gert Fröbe, Shirley Eaton, Margaret Nolan, and Austin Wallis, who played Goldfinger's card victim, all filmed their parts when filming started in Britain, with rear projections used, and in the case of Fröbe and Wallis, stand-ins used for the long shots.


September 17, 1964 -
Dick York started out as Durwood, I mean, Darrin as Bewitched premiered on ABC-TV on this date.



The show had an unusual amount of roles played by more than one person: two Darrins, two Gladys Kravitzes, two Louise Tates, two of Darrin's father. Dick York left the show in 1969 due to health problems; his role of Darrin was taken over by Dick Sargent. When Alice Pearce died, her role of Mrs. Kravitz was taken over by Sandra Gould.


September 17, 1965 -
CBS-TV premiered Hogan's Heroes, the first and perhaps only sitcom based in a German prisoner-of-war camp on this date.



Early in production planning, it was decided to make it always be winter, with snow on the ground, and frost on the windows. This was to prevent problems with continuity, and to allow the episodes to be shown in any order (it also makes prison life seem bleaker, and being winter adds even more of a menace whenever Klink or Schultz are being threatened with being sent to the Russian front). Since much of the filming was done in the summer, the cast members had to wear coats and act cold, even when the temperature was over 90 degrees Fahrenheit.


September 17, 1965 -

Artemus Gordon and the frequently bare-chested James T. West boarded their specially outfitted train for the first time when Wild, Wild, West premiered on ABC-TV on this date.



Robert Conrad has stated that the very tight pants he wore on the show often split open during action scenes. This is especially obvious in several wide angle shots of fight scenes in which Conrad's period incorrect Jockey shorts are clearly visible.


September 17, 1966 –
Wilson Pickett's cover of Chris Kenner's song, Land of 1000 Dances, went to No. 1 on the US Billboard Charts on this date.



Dances mentioned in Kenner's version are: The Pony, Mashed Potato, Alligator, Twist, Watusi, The Yo-Yo, Sweet Pea, Fly, Hand Jive, Slop, Chicken, Bop, Fish, Slow Twist, Tango, and the Popeye. Pickett's version mentions The Pony, Mashed Potato, Alligator, Twist, Watusi, and the Jerk.


September 17, 1966 -
The first mission from the IMF team from Mission Impossible premiered on CBS-TV on this date.



Greg Morris and Peter Lupus were the only original cast members to remain on the show throughout the entire run, although Lupus was replaced by Sam Elliott for approximately half of the episodes in season five.


September 17, 1967 -
The Doors appear on The Ed Sullivan Show on this date and things did not go as smoothly as the producers may have hoped.



The band had been asked by producer Bob Precht of The Ed Sullivan Show, to alter the lyrics of the song, Light My Fire, so as to eliminate the phrase “we couldn’t get much higher.” The band agreed to change the lyrics but come show time, Jim Morrison sang the lyrics as originally written. As a result, The Doors were banned from ever again appearing on The Ed Sullivan Show.


September 17, 1968 -
The TV series Julia premiered on this date, starring Diahann Carroll (as a nurse with a young son whose husband was killed in Vietnam), Lloyd Nolan, and Marc Copage. Carroll was the first African-American woman to star in a non-servant role in a TV series.



Diahann Carroll said in interview that the show ended when she asked to be let out of her television contract, having grown tired of the controversy surrounding the show from its inception.


September 17, 1969 -
The TV comedy sereis based of the 1963 film with the same name, The Courtdhip of Eddie's Father, starring Bill Bixby, Brandon Cruz, and Miyoshi Umeki premiered on ABC TV, on this date.



In real life, Bill Bixby became a surrogate father to Brandon Cruz, who came from a broken home, and Bixby took him in.


September 17, 1969 -
The adventure/drama television series Then Came Bronson, starring Michael Parks, premiered on NBC-TV on this date.



At the hill climb, several people are wearing "Viewfinders" jackets. The Viewfinders is a club for stunt men and people in the film industry


September 17, 1969 -
It was everyone's first day at Walt Whitman High School, when ABC TV premiered Room 222 starring Lloyd Haynes, Denise Nicholas, Michael Constantine, and Karen Valentine, aired on this date.



This was the first of three long-running sitcom franchises created or developed by James L. Brooks that are currently the property of 20th Television, the other two are The Mary Tyler Moore Show and The Simpsons. The shows from the first season included a laugh track. However, by the second season the laugh track was gone to help emphasize that the show was a drama, rather than a comedy.


September 17, 1972 -
We got to meet the staff of the 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital for the first time (on TV) when M*A*S*H, premiered on CBS TV on this date. The series was on TV for 11 years, the Korea War only lasted three years - you figure it out.



Jamie Farr and Alan Alda were the only two main cast members to have actually served in the U.S. Army in South Korea. Both of them did their tours of duty after the 1953 cease fire. Farr was drafted, serving in Japan at Camp Drake before eventually touring and performing throughout South Korea with friend Red Skelton. Alda voluntarily joined the Army Reserve after graduating from Fordham, and completed the minimum six-month tour of duty as a gunnery officer.


September 17, 1982 -
Zoetrope Studios' film Hammett, directed by Wim Wenders and executive produced by Francis Ford Coppola and starring Frederic Forrest, Peter Boyle, Marilu Henner, and Roy Kinnear, debuted in the US, on this date.



When director Wim Wenders completed his work, the company Orion was so dissatisfied, that the Zoetrope studio was ordered to re-write and re-shoot nearly the whole movie. Two different versions were produced, but only the second released. According to Wenders the first version, which was finished, is lost.


September 17, 1991 -
ABC-TV introduced us the the Taylor family and the cast and crew of Tool Time when Home Improvement premiered on this date.



Originally, Frances Fisher was cast as Jill Taylor. During the filming of the pilot, audiences reacted poorly, saying that she made the character of Jill whiney and desperate. She was replaced with Patricia Richardson four days before the pilot episode was taped.


September 17, 2011 -
Adele made everyone weep copious amount of tears with her single Someone Like You that it hits no. 1 on the Billboard Charts on this date.



Adele had boundless resources at her disposal, but all this song needed was two people, two days, and a studio with a grand piano. She wrote and recorded it at Harmony Studios in Los Angeles with Dan Wilson of the band Semisonic, whose co-writing credits include Not Ready To Make Nice with Dixie Chicks and Hidden Away with Josh Groban. The demo they recorded at the end of their second day (with Wilson on piano) ended up being so good that Adele decided to use it as the actual recording. She tried recording it with a band and a full orchestra, but couldn't beat that demo.


Another little known Monopoly card


Today in History:
On July 4, 1776, the American colonies told Britain to kiss their hairy American asses. This occurred during the Revolutionary War, during which the Redcoats were coming, a shot was heard 'round the world', and Paul Revere could see the whites of their eyes and knew that their taxes were too high.



The complexities of war demanded organization between the states, so they established Articles of Confederation, which in turn created a Continental Congress. This Congress was adequate to see them through the war, but by the late 1780s it became clear that both the Continental Congress and the Articles of Confederation sucked.



Even way back then Americans didn't want anything to do with anything that sucked (unless it meant a substantial discount, which in this case it did not).

The Continental Congress tried to fix the Articles of Confederation in 1786. The Congress still sucked, of course, and so they failed.

In the spring of 1787 the states sent new delegates to a new convention designed to produce a government that wouldn't be so awful.



On September 17, 1787, the Constitutional Convention voted its approval of a new Constitution, which they immediately ran out to have printed.

The Continental Congress acted with its usual efficiency, and by July 2 of the following year, the Constitution had become the law of the land. The last act of the Continental Congress was to schedule federal elections for their replacements.



Today is Constitution Day in the U.S. Celebrate by refusing to allow soldiers to be billeted in your home.


September 17, 1778 -
The United States signed its first treaty with a Native American tribe, the Delaware Nation, on this date.

Within a year the Delaware Indians were expressing grievances about the treaty. A delegation of Delawares visited Philadelphia in 1779 to explain their dissatisfaction to the Continental Congress, but nothing changed and peace between the United States and the Delaware Indians collapsed. (The day should be called Lies the White Man told Us day.)


September 17, 1859 -

The San Francisco Call Bulletin published a notice on an inside page announcing that our old pal Joshua Norton, formerly a prominent businessman, had proclaimed himself Norton I, “Emperor of these United States and Protector of Mexico.” He annexed the whole of the US and suspended the Constitution. His Majesty remained on the job until his death in 1880.



The successor to Emperor Norton I has still yet to be anointed. I am still consulting attorneys about this matter, as we speak.


September 17, 1908 -
Thomas E. Selfridge becomes the world's first airplane fatality when the Wright Flyer, a craft he's co-piloting with Orville Wright for the U.S. Army, crashed near Fort Meyer, Virginia on this date.

An untested propeller ripped apart the plane's structure, causing it to nosedive from an altitude of 75 feet.

Orville walks away unscathed and Wilber never quite trusted his brother again, as he was supposed to fly in the plane with his brother. And yet despite the tragic mishap, the War Department awarded the contract for the first military aircraft to Wright.

If you can, please seek out the Karpeles Manuscript Library branch (according to Wikipedia, the world's largest private holding of important original documents and manuscripts), located in Santa Barbara, CA. The museum has several items of correspondence between the Wright Brothers and the War Department on display, including the first contract for the Wright Flyer.


September 17, 1935 -
Len Koenecke was an outfielder with the Brooklyn Dodgers for most of 1935, but near the end of the season he was released for “behavior and erratic play.” The Dodger left St. Louis by passenger plane, but was ordered off in Detroit because of intoxication. Len chartered a three-seater plane for Buffalo that included both the pilot and the co-pilot.

The ballplayer began to play with the airplane controls, and would not stop when ordered. Koenecke and the pilot’s pal were soon fighting on the floor. Knowing that it was either him or us, the pilot grabbed a fire extinguisher and while still flying the plane he continued to whack on the offender’s head hard enough to knock him out. When the pilot finally landed near Toronto, Koenecke was dead at the age of 31.



So kids, please remain in you seat until the plane comes to a complete stop or the pilot may have to kill you.


September 17, 1939 -
The Soviet Union invaded Poland, to fulfill its end of the secret protocols contained in the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact. They partition the country along pre-decided lines.



As you well know the last laugh will be on the Russian, when Hitler turns on them.


September 17, 1978 -
The Camp David Peace Accords, a set of agreements between Egypt and Israel was signed on this date. The agreements were the culmination of years of negotiations for peace in the Middle East. Acting as a peace broker, President Jimmy Carter convinced Egyptian President Anwar el-Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin to reach a compromise in their disputes.



It is a little sadder knowing Mr. Carter is no longer with us.



And so it goes

Washington just set us back on this front

In 1994, the UN General Assembly proclaimed September 16, the International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer, commemorating the date of the signing, in 1987, of the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer.



This year marks the 36th anniversary of the signing of the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer following the 1985 Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer (it was at this meeting, that the famous 'hole in the ozone' above the Arctic was announced,) an important milestone in the protection of the ozone layer. This year's theme is supported by the slogan, “Montreal Protocol: fixing the ozone layer and reducing climate change.”

(This will be on the test)


September 16, 1932 -
RKO released the B-film thriller, The Most Dangerous Game, which was shot alongside King Kong, using the same sets and much of the same talent in order to defray costs.



The trophy room scenes were much longer in the preview version of 78 minutes; there were more heads in jars. There was also an emaciated sailor, stuffed and mounted next to a tree where he was impaled by Zaroff's arrow, and another full-body figure stuffed, with the bodies of two of the hunting dogs mounted in a death grip. Preview audiences cringed and shuddered at the head in the bottle and the mounted heads, but when they saw the mounted figures and heard Zaroff's dialog describing in detail how each man had died, they began heading for the exit - so these shots disappeared.


September 5, 1933 -
The Looney Tunes short, Bosko the Musketeer , directed by Ben Harman and Rudolf Ising starring Bosko, was released on this date.



The animation of Honey dancing is reused from Bosko in Person.


September 5, 1944 -
The Looney Tunes short, Plane Daffy , directed by Frank Tashlin and starring Daffy Duck, was released on this date.



Despite being the main character, Daffy Duck doesn't actually appear until the cartoon is over halfway finished.


September 16, 1949 -
The Looney Tunes short, Fast and Furry-ous, directed by Chuck Jones and starring Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner, was released on this date.



This marks the debut of both Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner.


September 5, 1950 -
The Merrie Melodies short, A Fractured Leghorn, directed by Bob McKimson, and Foghorn Leghorn, was released on this date.



This is the first Foghorn Leghorn short to not feature Barnyard Dawg or Henery Hawk.


September 16, 1953 -
The first movie filmed in the widescreen process CinemaScope, The Robe, premiered at the Roxy Theater in New York on this date.



Richard Burton hated making the film so much that he turned down a contract from 20th Century Fox. He was amazed to receive an Oscar nomination after critics had almost universally described his performance as "wooden". Still, Burton would make more films at Fox than at any other studio.


Sept 16, 1964 -
The first of Sergio Leone’s “Man with No Name” westerns, Fistful of Dollars, opened in Italy, three years before it would arrive in the United States. The term 'Spaghetti Westerns' was coined by Spanish journalist Alfonso Sánchez. As pointed out by one of our more astute bunkies, most 'Spaghetti Westerns' were shot in Spain.



The film was a remake of Yojimbo, which itself was based on the as yet unadapted 1929 novel Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett. In fact, the film's US release was delayed when Yojimbo's screenwriters Akira Kurosawa and Ryûzô Kikushima sued the filmmakers for breach of copyright. Kurosawa and Kikushima won, and as a result received 15% of the film's worldwide gross and exclusive distribution rights for Japan, Taiwan and South Korea. Kurosawa said later he made more money off of this project than he did on Yojimbo.


September 16, 1963 -

The science-fiction anthology series The Outer Limits premiered on ABC-TV on this date.



The original title for this series was Please Stand By, but because the Cuban Missile Crisis had happened less than a year earlier, executives thought it might make people fearful of an air raid. As a reference to this, when the 1995 revival of the series would cut to a commercial, the Control Voice said, "Please stand by."


September 16, 1965 -
NBC-TV finally put that little ole' wine drinker ... on the air when The Dean Martin Show premiered on this date.



Dean Martin wanted to be on TV but also wanted to be free to do movies and records; his contract required that he only show up to do his variety show one day per week (on Sundays). That's why he always seemed slightly out of step with the rest of the cast, who had rehearsed with Lee Hale standing in for Martin the day before. When Martin made a mistake he'd just laugh it off. The audience loved it.


September 16, 1967 -
The TV series Mannix, starring Mike Connors, premiered on CBS-TV on this date.



Mike Connors complained that this show was not very good at showing the consequences of violence. He said Joe Mannix would get thrown down a flight of stairs in one scene, and then appear without a scratch in the next.


September 16, 1969 -
The hardest working person in Hollywood had her series, The Debbie Reynolds Show, starring (besides her,) Don Chastain, Patricia Smith, Tom Bosley, and Debbie Thompson debut, on NBC TV, on this date



Debbie Reynolds' contract with NBC guaranteed a two season run, promised her a starring role in a feature film to be produced by the network and would also have given her partial ownership of a future series in which she needn't star. But the adverse publicity resultant from Reynolds' vociferous objections to a cigarette ad appearing on the initial broadcast caused that sponsor to withdraw their advertising from the network and eventually resulted in a lawsuit which gave NBC the right to revoke the guaranteed second season, cancel the proposed feature film and void the entire deal. Reynolds' career never fully recovered, and at one point she found herself homeless and literally living in her car.


September 16, 1971 -
The Western series Bearcats! starring Rod Taylor and Dennis Cole, aired on CBS TV on this date.



Hollywood car builder/customizer George Barris made two replica 1914 Bearcats for the series. A period TV Guide article said they cost $25,000 for the pair, this at a time when a new Corvette was about $5,000. The cars were full scale metal bodied replicas mounted on custom frames and powered by Ford engines and transmissions (out of (then) late model pickups. For safety they featured four wheel brakes, which were not on a genuine Bearcat. The brass radiator is interchangeable with a genuine Stutz unit.


September 16, 1972 -

Everybody's favorite therapist, other than Frasier (see below) walked through his front door as The Bob Newhart Show premiered on CBS-TV on this date.



Actor Peter Bonerz who played Jerry the dentist learned how to direct on the set of this show and went on to become an award-winning director of other comedy series.


September 16, 1972 -
An older man takes a younger man under his wing while they cruise along on The Streets of San Francisco, starring Karl Malden and Michael Douglas, on ABC TV, on this date.



By all accounts Karl Malden and Michael Douglas developed a strong professional and personal relationship from their time on the series. Twenty years after last working together on an episode they were both onstage at the 1996 People's Choice Awards. Malden referred to Douglas as "the son I never had" and mentioned that he had wanted producer Quinn Martin to cast Douglas on the series. Douglas responded to the compliment by calling Malden "my mentor," and both also expressed that they enjoyed working together on the show.


September 16, 1977 -
The eponymously named debut LP, Talking Heads: 77, was released on this date.



It has long been considered one of the best debut albums of the CBGB habitués


September 16, 1984 -
In case you you looking for the official date that the 80s began - Miami Vice premiered on NBC-TV on this date.



The series' commitment to the visual quality of every episode made it one of the most expensive shows to produce at the time. In fact, the cost to produce one episode of the show was greater than that of the entire annual budget of the Miami Police Department's Vice Unit.


September 16, 1993 -
Kelsey Grammer continued playing Dr. Fraiser Crane as Frasier, premiered on NBC-TV on this date.



David Hyde Pierce has said that, prior to this series, he had no strong interest in wine nor opera. Ironically, he was introduced to both by John Mahoney, whose Martin Crane character eschews anything cultured.


Another episode of ACME"S Little Known Animal Facts


Today in History:
September 16, 1498 -
Tomas de Torquemada, the notorious Grand Inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition, died in Avila, Spain on this date.

More than 2,000 heretics were burned to death and 9,654 otherwise tortured under his aegis before all the Jews were expelled in 1492. In 1836, vandals break into Torquemada's tomb, cremate the bones, and scatter his ashes upon the winds.


At precisely twelve noon on September 16, 1893 a cannon's boom unleashed the largest land rush America ever saw.



Carried by all kinds of transportation - horses, wagons, trains, bicycles or on foot - an estimated 100,000 raced to claim plots of land in an area of land in northern Oklahoma Territory known as the Cherokee Strip.


September 16, 1810 -
No tequila for you if you thought Mexican Independence Day was Cinco de Mayo.



Today is Independence Day in Mexico.



Mexico began its revolt against Spanish rule on this date. Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla issued "El Grito de Dolores" (Cry of Freedom), which claimed the end of Spanish rule.


September 16, 1908 -
General Motors Holding Company was formed in Flint, Mich., by William Durant on this date. (Within 12 days the company generated stocks that generated $12,000,000 cash.)



Psst, something else your teachers didn't tell you - Nazi armaments chief Albert Speer told a congressional investigator in 1974 that Germany could not have attempted its September 1939 Blitzkrieg of Poland without the performance-boosting additive technology provided by Alfred P. Sloan (long-time president, chairman, and CEO of General Motors Corporation.)


September 16, 1920 -
A horse-drawn carriage loaded with dynamite exploded in front of the J.P. Morgan and Company headquarters at 23 Wall Street in New York's financial district, on this date. 30 people were killed in the blast. More than 400 were injured.



Although the crime was never solved, it was believed to be the work of anarchists - angry internationalists who thought the only good institutions were smoldering ruins. Anarchist Leon Czolgosz had assassinated President McKinley two decades earlier, on September 6, 1901, in Buffalo - an assassination that brought Teddy Roosevelt to the bully pulpit.

(Despite similarities in spelling, Anarchists should not be confused with Antichrists, Arachnids or Pimentos.)

It was perhaps no accident that the Morgan bombing took place on the 300th anniversary of the Mayflower’s departure from England. The passengers were mostly members of a separatist Protestant congregation (Puritan Party Poopers) breaking away from the Church of England. They came from the English Midlands, first moving to a village near Amsterdam, where they lived in Holland for ten years (generally bringing everybody down), before deciding to start their own society from scratch. They had two boats for the trip across the Atlantic: the Speedwell and the Mayflower. The Speedwell leaked, and much time was wasted trying to repair it.



So when they finally set sail on September 16 (September 6th on the OC), they were way behind schedule. The journey took 66 days. It was rainy, it was cold, and the ocean was rough (They loved it). The boat was 90 feet long and carried 102 passengers. There were no separate cabins. They all had to live in the cargo area. But the Mayflower had previously been used to transport wine, and so the hold smelled wonderful (They hated it).



The Mayflower (without the Speedwell) carried its cargo of Puritan Party Poopers (Pilgrims) to Massachusetts, where they became the first tourists in history to visit Plymouth Rock.

Anarchists hate tourists.


September 16th 1959 -
A live television demonstration made the Xerox 914 the first successful photocopier. It took the Xerox machine around 25 seconds to make one copy – not too bad considering it was the first machine of it’s kind.



One little side note about the machine is that if too many copies were made during one period of time, it would overheat. As a result this overheating would lead to the machine catching fire. So that made photocopying your butt a risky business.


September 16, 1968 -
Presidential candidate Richard M. Nixon appears on the NBC comedy show Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In and asks Sock it to me? on this date.



George Schlatter, the creator of Laugh-In, unsuccessfully chased after Vice-President Hubert Humphrey to offer him the same opportunity to appear on the show. Humphrey was unable to make room in his schedule and always regretted it, stating that he believed it was one of the reasons he lost the election.


September 16, 1977 -
Maria Callas, American-born prima donna famed for her lyric soprano and fiery temperament, died in Paris on this date.





From October 1971 to March 1972, Callas gave a series of master classes to 25 students at The Juilliard School in New York, who auditioned for the opportunity to be critiqued by her. They were open to the public and the sold-out crowds included opera greats Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Tito Gobbi, Plácido Domingo, Grace Bumbry, and Bidu Sayão, actors Lillian Gish and Ben Gazzara, and director Franco Zeffirelli.


September 16, 2025 -
When you get older, you learn certain life lessons. You apply that wisdom, and suddenly you say, 'Hey, I've got a new lease on this thing. So let's go.'



Charles Robert Redford Jr., actor, director, producer, and founder of the Sundance Festival, passed away earlier today.



And so it goes

Fashion rules!

September 15, 1922 -
According to fashion arbiters from days gone by - you should not be wearing your straw hats any longer this season -

In the early 20th Century, tradition held that a man switch from straw hats to felt ones on September 15th. If he wore “the taboo headgear” after that date, hooligans were free to smash it to bits.



In 1922, a group of men and boy, 1,000 strong from the Five Points neighborhood sparked a bizarre riot that shook New York City from the Battery to the Bronx, as they prowled the city, beating men, who refused to remove their straw hats.



And whatever you do, don't mention The Susquehanna Hat Company.


September 15, 1949 -
The Lone Ranger, the masked hero rode onto the fledgling ABC network for the first time on this date



In the early 1950s, the show was so popular that ABC briefly repeated it late on Friday nights for those who missed the Thursday night broadcast.



Oh, Lenny Bruce had something to say on the subject


September 15, 1945 -
The Looney Tunes short, The Bashful Buzzard, directed by Bob Clampett and starring Beaky Buzzard, was released on this date.



The premise of this cartoon is very similar to Beaky Buzzard's debut cartoon Bugs Bunny Gets the Boid with Bugs Bunny, and the opening scene of this cartoon is nearly identical to that in the earlier film.


September 15, 1957 -
Bachelor Father, starring John Forsythe, Noreen Corcoran and Sammee Tong, premiered on CBS-TV on this date. It has the destinction of being the only primetime series ever to run in consecutive years on the three major television networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC).



Despite his character's accent on the show, Sammee Tong (who played Peter, the Chinese houseboy) was actually born in the United States, and graduated from Stanford University.


September 15, 1965 -
This was an incredibly busy day in TV History:

Danger Will Robinson, danger. Dr. Smith is attempting to inappropriately stimulate your young pulsating bulbous nether region!

The Robinson Family gets Lost in Space for the first time on CBS-TV on this date.


(go to video's setting and play back at 1.25x)

Irwin Allen pitched his idea for the series to CBS programmer James Aubrey, who immediately snapped it up. A few weeks later Gene Roddenberry pitched his idea for Star Trek: The Original Series to Aubrey, who turned him down. He felt that this show was the more commercial of the two.


The Big Valley premiered on this date.



Victoria (Barbara Stanwyck) is the only Barkley who was never shot throughout the run of the series. Heath (Lee Majors) was shot the most, while Nick (Peter Breck) was shot twice in the same episode.


American started really liking Sally Fields when Gidget premiered on ABC-TV on this date.



The show was the TV debut for Sally Field. She auditioned for the role on a lark and was astonished when they offered her the part.


Green Acres premiered on this date.



Pat Buttram based his portrayal of Mr. Haney on Tom Parker-- aka "Col. Tom Parker", Elvis Presley's manager--whom he met a decade or so earlier when Parker was a carnival barker.


And last, but not least, the first American television drama to feature an African-American actor in a lead role, I Spy, starring Bill Cosby and Robert Culp, premiered on NBC-TV on this date.



Bill Cosby's character, Alexander Scott, was originally intended to be an older mentor to Robert Culp's trainee agent, Kelly Robinson. Executive producer Sheldon Leonard cast Cosby in the role after seeing one of his routines (Scott was originally intended to be a Caucasian). Due to this casting change, the writers thought an occasional reference to Cosby's race would be a necessity, given the tumult of the times.


September 15, 1967 -
The Star Trek episode Amok Time aired on this date. In the episode, Kirk and Spock are pitted in a fight to the death against each other by Spock’s wife-to-be when Spock suffers his first pon farr (the Vulcan time of mating).



The episode is the first in which Spock uses either the phrase “live long and prosper” and makes the “Vulcan salute” gesture for the first time.


September 15, 1969 -
The gentle comedy based on the humor of James Thurber, My World ... and Welcome to It, starring William Windom, Lisa Gerritsen, Joan Hotchkis, Harold J. Stone, and Henry Morgan, premiered on CBS TV on this date.



Prior to working on this series, William Windom and Lisa Gerritsen appeared as father and daughter on the series Lancer.


September 15, 1971 -
Just one more thing...

The first episode of the Columbo series, Murder By The Book, directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Steven Bochco, premiered on NBC-TV on this date.



Peter Falk frequently added in unscripted improvisations such as asking for a pencil, searching for something in his pockets, asking a character to repeat something, rambling about irrelevant trivialities, or adding in a line about Mrs. Columbo. Falk did this to frustrate and annoy his fellow actor (usually the suspect) and generate a genuine "get to the point" moment.


September 15, 1976 -
The musical comedy film, Bugsy Malone, directed by Alan Parker (in his feature film directorial debut), and starring Jodie Foster, Scott Baio, and John Cassisi, went into general release in the US, on this date.



Alan Parker admitted to having an ambivalent attitude to the film and for years did not include it in any biography/filmography of his work. However, over the years his attitude changed and he came to be very proud of it.


September 15, 1979 -
The eighth and final studio album by Led Zeppelin, In Through the Out Door, was No 1 on the Billboard Charts on this date.



When they were recording this album, Jimmy Page and John Bonham were spending a lot of time together and would usually show up at the studio very late and work through the night.


September 15, 1983 -
Chrysalis Records released Huey Lewis and the News' third album, Sports, on this date.



Huey Lewis & the News had lots of goofy fun in their videos, which was exactly what MTV was looking for. They would often star Lewis as a normal guy surrounded by lunatics played by his bandmates.


September 15, 1986 –
Los Angeles law firm McKenzie, Brackman, Chaney and Kuzak first opened their doors to television viewer when LA Law premiered on NBC-TV on this date.



Stephen Bochco had wanted Kiel Martin to play the role of Arnie Becker, having worked with Martin on Hill Street Blues where Martin had played Det. J.D. LaRue and knowing that Martin's mix of acting skill and personal issues (he had battled alcoholism for a long time and successfully dealt with his addiction to stay in the Det. LaRue role) would be a great fit for a character with Arnie's mix of success and demons. Unfortunately, Martin has serious health problems that meant he was unable to do the role, so Bochco cast Corbin Bernsen instead.


Today's moment of Zen.


Today in History:
September 15, 1776 -
The British, led by General Howe, occupied Manhattan, capturing Kip's Bay, on this date.

Outraged by the rents, discouraged by the lack of parking and homesick for bubble and squeak and spotted dick, however, they left shortly afterwards, leaving only drunken journalists behind.


September 15, 1830 -
British MP William Huskisson was chatting amiably with the Duke of Wellington at the grand opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, when all at once the right honorable gentleman distinguished himself for posterity by becoming the first human being in history to be run over by a train.

Apparently, Mr. Huskisson's number was up.



(The Duke of Wellington, on the other hand, is remembered for his Beef.)


September 15, 1864 -
Thirty-four years later, on this date, another hardy British soul, the explorer John Speke, distinguished himself by becoming the first European to see Africa's Lake Victoria, and then accidentally killing himself while hunting partridges.

(conveniently, the day before he was to debate his finding with his famous exploration partner, Richard Burton (the man who invented sex) - no, not that Richard Burton, the other one, the famous self circumciser, and translator of 1001 Arabian Nights, The Perfumed Garden, and the Kama Sutra.)


September 15, 1885 -
Goodbye Jumbo.



Circus showman P.T. Barnum's prize elephant Jumbo was struck dead by a freight train in St. Thomas, Ontario, Canada. It took 150 men to haul the carcass up an embankment, from whence it is taken to a taxidermist.



The stuffed Jumbo became a featured attraction in Barnum's circus.

Afterwards, P.T. Barnum was an early trustee and benefactor of Tufts and he donated the stuffed hide of Jumbo to the university. On April 14, 1975, Barnum Hall and the beloved elephant were consumed in an electrical fire. Some of his ashes were recovered in a peanut butter jar that has remained in the athletics director’s office where students continue to rub it for good luck.


September 15, 1890 -
It's the birthday of Agatha Christie (Vanessa Redgrave), born in Devon, England. She was a Red Cross nurse during World War I. She started reading detective novels because she found they took her mind off her troubles (her husband couldn't help sleeping with other women) and soon after, started writing her own.



Her big breakthrough book was her novel The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, which came out in 1926. It was the same year in which Christie had a fight with her husband, fled her own home, and was missing for ten days. There was a nationwide search. It was on the front pages of all the papers. And when she finally turned up, she was famous and all of her books were best-sellers.


September 15, 1928 -
Scottish bacteriologist and noted slob Alexander Fleming accidentally discovered that the mold penicillin had an antibiotic effect, on this date. Had he cleaned his laboratory every night and put all his things away like a good little boy, he never would have discovered penicillin, and half of us would be dead right now.



As I am deathly allergic to penicillin, his discovery has done little for me but I pass this along to you all.


September 15, 1954 -
In front of thousands of spectating New Yorkers at 51st and Lexington, Marilyn Monroe performed the now-famous skirt blowing scene during filming for The Seven Year Itch. The event basically boils down to a publicity stunt, as the whole thing was reshot later on a Hollywood soundstage.



Unfortunately, this event is the final straw in the Monroe - Dimaggio marriage and it soon comes undone.


September 15, 1963 -
In Birmingham, Alabama, Bobby Frank Cherry, Thomas Blanton, Herman Frank Cash and Robert Chambliss planted 15 dynamite sticks in the basement of the 16th Street Baptist Church, below the women's restroom. When the dynamite exploded, four little girls in the bathroom and were killed (Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Carole Robertson and Cynthia Wesley); more than 20 other parishioners also were injured.



Chambliss was later tried and convicted of murder; he was sentenced to life in prison in 1977. Two of his accomplices also were later sentenced to life in prison (Herman Cash died in 1994 without having been charged.)


September 15, 1972 -

Indictments were brought against the seven Watergate burglars: James McCord, Frank Sturgis, Bernard L. Barker, Eugenio R. Martinez, Virgilio R. Gonzales, E. Howard Hunt (noted spy, novelist and possible Kennedy assassin, rumored to have been the man on the grassy knoll) and G. Gordon Liddy (noted rat connoisseur), on this date.


September 15, 2008 -
18 years ago, Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy (the largest so far in the United States) on this date and is seen as the beginning of the global financial crisis (The Great Recession.)



I'm not sure what the correct anniversary gift should be - but once again, may I suggest, just find a banker or hedge fund manager and take a sock full of nickels to his groin (repeatedly.)



And so it goes