A Little Known ACME fact

A mid-1950s construction worker involved in the demolition of the J. C. Wilber Building finds a box inside a cornerstone. He opens it to reveal a singing, dancing frog (that came to be called Michigan J. Frog,) complete with top hat and cane.



According to the cartoon, One Froggy Night (1955), the box also contains a commemorative document dated April 16, 1892.


April 16, 1932 -
The Music Box, moment by moment one of the funniest Laurel and Hardy sound movies, premiered on this date.



The crate that Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy wrestle with was empty, but the one shown sliding down the staircase really did have an upright piano in it. As it careens down the steps muffled, discordant tones can be heard.


April 15, 1950 -
The Looney Tunes short, Porky's Five & Ten, directed by Bob Clampett, debuted on this date.



This cartoon uses the song Hooray for Hollywood, with one part of the lyrics changed from "Go out and try your luck, you might be Donald Duck" to "Go on and try your luck, you might be Daffy Duck", likely changed to avoid the mention of the Disney character.


April 15, 1955 -
The Looney Tunes short, The Hole Idea, directed by Robert McKimson, debuted on this date.



This short is one of a handful of Warner Bros. animated shorts not to feature any anthropomorphic animal characters.


April 16, 1956 -
The I Love Lucy Episode, Lucy's Italian Movie (the grape stomping episode) first aired on CBS TV on this date. This is considered on of the funniest episodes of the series.



The grape stompers were actual Italian women who didn't speak English. In a 1974 interview with Dick Cavett, Lucille Ball went in-depth on the making of the infamous scene in which she got in a fight in the grape vat, revealing that the fight was scripted but the other woman didn't understand that it was supposed to be phony, and as a result she wound up actually beating the hell out of Lucy. The audience and crew were oblivious to what was really happening and the fight stretched on so long that it had to be severely edited in the final cut of the show. Despite the hardships she endured during the making, Ball cited this as her favorite episode of the series.


April 16, 1962 -
This is the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite



Walter Cronkite succeeded Douglas Edwards as anchorman of The CBS Evening News on this date.


April 11, 1964 -
Needing one more song for his album, Dean Martin recorded Everybody Loves Somebody, which his friend Frank Sinatra recorded in 1947 and several other singers tried in the '50s, on this date.



Dean Martin hadn't had a substantial pop hit since his version of Volare went to #12 in 1958. In 1962, he signed with the Reprise record label, which was founded by Frank Sinatra. Reprise was able to put some promotional might behind Martin and give him a more contemporary sound. He kept his distance from rock and roll, but there was still an audience for his sound. Everybody Loves Somebody became the first chart-topper on Reprise; Martin was a reliable seller on the label throughout the '60s, with most of his singles landing on the Hot 100.


April 16, 1964 -
The Rolling Stones released their first, eponymously named album in the UK on this date.



When London Records released the Stones’ debut album in the US, it came with a slightly different album cover. The photo was the same, but the band’s name featured prominently on the front, along with a subtitle: England’s Newest Hit Makers.


April 16, 1973 -
In order to fulfill a contractual obligation with Lew Grade, Paul McCartney appeared in his first TV special (since the disastrous Magical Mystery Tour,) James Paul McCartney, on this date.



Although it was very highly anticipated – McCartney received a cover story on TV Guide – the reviews were dreadful. The New York Times dismissed it as “a series of disconnected routines strung together with commercials for Chevrolet.” The Washington Post was nastier, taking Linda to task as not being her husband’s artistic equal. “Mrs. McCartney’s previous careers … do not qualify her to perform in public,” according to the Post’s critic.


April 16, 1977 -
David Soul one half of TV cop show Starsky & Hutch, went to No.1 on the US singles chart (as well as the UK charts,) with Don't Give Up On Us, his only US hit, on this date.



This was written by Tony Macaulay, who co-wrote four other UK #1s: Baby Now That I've Found You for the Foundations, Let The Heartaches Begin for Long John Baldry, Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes) for Edison Lighthouse and Silver Lady for David Soul.


April 16, 1978 -
Directed by Marvin Chomsky and written by Gerald Green, the television mini-series, Holocaust, starring Fritz Weaver, Joseph Bottoms, Michael Moriarty, David Warner, Tovah Feldshuh, Rosemary Harris, Ian Holm, George Rose, Meryl Streep, James Woods, Blanche Baker, and Sam Wanamaker, recounts the Nazi genocide of European Jewry through two fictional families in Berlin: the Weisses, who are Jewish, and the Dorfs, who are Christian, premiered on NBC on this date.



When this was aired on German television, it included the "Krystallnacht" scene, where people were smashing the windows of synagogues and Jewish-owned businesses. When that segment was shown, police station switchboards were flooded with confessional calls from people who had participated in the actual event, calling to confess their participation. The Statute of Limitations had run, however, and no action could be taken despite their confessions. Subsequently, the West German Government altered the relevant laws to extend the time limits, to enable the prosecution of such perpetrators.


April 16, 2003 -
The comedy action film, Bulletproof Monk, directed by Paul Hunter in his feature film directorial debut, and starring Chow Yun-fat, Seann William Scott, and Jaime King, opened on this date.



At the time the film was released, it received poor reviews and underplayed at the box office. But it has since earned a cult following due to its unique blend of action and comedy.


April 16, 2010 -
The very funny comedy (which received mixed reviews when originally released) Death at a Funeral, directed by Neil LaBute and starring Chris Rock, Martin Lawrence, Danny Glover, Regina Hall, Peter Dinklage, James Marsden, Tracy Morgan, Loretta Devine, Zoë Saldaña, Columbus Short, Luke Wilson, Keith David, Ron Glass and Kevin Hart, opened on this date.



This movie is a remake of the 2007 movie of the same name. Although Hollywood has a history of making American versions of foreign films, the original versions are usually in a language other than English. Not the case here, since the original film was a British production and filmed in English. This is a very unusual case of a remake being made very quickly of an English-language movie that had a theatrical release in the U.S. Both versions of the story enjoyed success worldwide. The 2007 version earned just over $46 million, and this version earned just over $49 million.


Another little known Monopoly card


Today in History:
April 16, 1178 BC -
... The sun has been obliterated from the sky, and an unlucky darkness invades the world. - Theoclymenus





A solar eclipse may have marked the return of Odysseus, legendary King of Ithaca and one of the most recurrent characters in Western literature, to his kingdom after the Trojan War on this date.


April 16, 1865 -
President Abraham Lincoln lay in state on this date. Two days previously, he receives a cranial gunshot wound from a member of the nation's most famous acting families, John Wilkes Booth. Lincoln died the following day, primarily from ill-advised attempts to extract the bullet lodged in his brain.

At approximately the same time, a co-conspirator of Booth's, Lewis Powell broke into the Secretary of State William Seward's home and attacks his family.



Incredibly, Mr. Seward survives a stabbing to the face and neck. The president's death came only six days after Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered his massive army at Appomattox, effectively ending the American Civil War.

So once again, how was the play Mrs. Lincoln?


April 16, 1866 -
Dmitry Karakozov, a minor nobleman from Kostroma attempted to assassinate Tsar Alexander II of Russia at the gates of the Summer Garden in St. Petersburg on this date.

As the Tsar was leaving, Dmitry rushed forward to fire. The attempt was thwarted by Osip Komissarov, a peasant-born hatter's apprentice, who jostled Karakozov's elbow right before the shot was fired


April 16, 1889 -
Charles Spencer Chaplin, Jr, actor, writer, songwriter, composer, film producer and director was born on this date.



When Chaplin arrived in the United States with the Fred Karno troupe on October 2, 1912, in his second trip to America, according to Ellis Island immigration records, he had $45 in his pocket. He listed his half-brother Syd Chaplin, as his next of kin. Though his mother was still alive, she was in a mental hospital. Sailing with him was fellow Karno troupe member Arthur Stanley Jefferson - later to be known as Stan Laurel.


April 16, 1912 -
In 1911, Harriet Quimby earned the first US pilot's license issued to a woman. Less than a year later, Quimby, in a Bleriot monoplane, became the first woman to fly solo over the English Channel on this date.



Her achievement was overshadowed in the press however, by reports of the sinking of the Titanic.


April 16 1912 -
The remains of the R.M.S. Titanic came to rest at the bottom of the sea on this date. The unsinkable ship sank after being torn by iceberg. Of a total of 2,208 people, only 712 survived; 1,496 perished.



If the lifeboats had been filled to capacity, 1,178 people could have been saved. Of the first-class, 203 were saved (60%) and 121 died. Of the second-class, 118 (44%) were saved and 159 were lost. Of the third-class, 178 were saved (25%) and 588 perished. Of the crew, 212 were saved (24%) and 679 perished. The majority of deaths were caused by victims succumbing to hypothermia in the 28 °F (-2 °C) water. Of particular note, the entire complement of the 35-member Engineering Staff (25 engineers, 6 electricians, two boilermakers, one plumber, and one writer/engineer's clerk) were lost.



The entire ship's orchestra was also lost. Led by violinist Wallace Hartley, they played music on the boat deck of the Titanic that night to calm the passengers. It will probably forever remain unknown what this orchestra selected as their last piece. Based on evidence from various sources some argue it was Nearer my God to Thee while others say it was Autumn.


April 16, 1917 -
Following the February Revolution (which occurred in March,) Nicholas II chose to abdicate in March 1917 (which was actually March at the time.) Vladimir Lenin was in exile in Switzerland at the time, (we believe Lenin really was in Switzerland.)



A passer-by informed him about the Russian Tsar's abdication, so Lenin and a group of his followers returned to Russia in a train provided by the Germans to take the reins of the Russian Revolution. They were greeted at St Petersburg (which was known as Petrograd at the time,) station on this date in 1917 by a great reception.


April 16, 1939 -
Mary Isabel Catherine Bernadette O'Brien, one of the leading pop singer and entertainer of the 1960s was born on this date.



The uniqueness of Dusty Springfield's voice was described by Burt Bacharach as: "You could hear just three notes and you knew it was Dusty."


April 16, 1943 -
LSD was first synthesized on April 7, 1938 by Swiss chemist Dr. Albert Hofmann at the Sandoz Laboratories in Basel, Switzerland, as part of a large research program searching for medically useful ergot alkaloid derivatives. Its psychedelic properties were unknown until five years later, when Hofmann, acting on what he has called a "peculiar presentiment," returned to work on the chemical. He attributed the discovery of the compound's psychoactive effects to the accidental absorption of a tiny amount through his skin on this date.

Here is the first instance of the defense I did not inhale - I accidentally dropped acid.



Here is an excerpt from Dr. Hofmann's diary concerning this day -

... Last Friday, April 16,1943, I was forced to interrupt my work in the laboratory in the middle of the afternoon and proceed home, being affected by a remarkable restlessness, combined with a slight dizziness. At home I lay down and sank into a not unpleasant intoxicated-like condition, characterized by an extremely stimulated imagination. In a dreamlike state, with eyes closed (I found the daylight to be unpleasantly glaring), I perceived an uninterrupted stream of fantastic pictures, extraordinary shapes with intense, kaleidoscopic play of colors. After some two hours this condition faded away....



Oh wow, the colors, the lights, man.


April 16, 1947 -
The French freighter Grandcamp, loaded with ammonium nitrate fertilizer, exploded at a port in Texas City, Texas on this date. The blast caused other explosions at a nearby chemical plant, spreading fires across oil refineries along the port.



An estimated 600 people were killed by the blast and the ensuing fires which swept the port and the surrounding town. The accident is considered the worst industrial accident in US history because of the high number of fatalities.


April 16, 1963 -
Martin Luther King wrote his famous Letter from Birmingham Jail, on this date. He composed it over the course of day, writing on a legal pad provided by his lawyers, margins of a newspaper, and, after running out of both of the above, toilet paper.



King’s response to the wrong-time, wrong-place accusation was succinct. “I am in Birmingham because injustice is here” he said. “I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”


On a personal note, I want to wish Michael and Stephanie a very Happy Anniversary.

And so it goes.

They're the hardest thing in the world to understand

You might think that today, April 15, is the deadline for submitting personal tax returns, but this is not always the case. When the date falls on a weekend, it is often moved to the following Monday.

But since today is Wednesday, they're due today.



you better hustle.


April 15, 1923 -
Dr. Lee De Forest demonstrates his Phonofilm sound-on-film process to the first paying movie audience at an invitation-only event at the Rialto Theater in New York City. (I've seen the date listed as March 12 as well.)



Dr. De Forest received in 1959 an honorary Oscar from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.


April 15, 1950 -
The Merrie Melodies short, The Hypo-Chondri-Cat, directed by Chuck Jones and starring Hubie and Bertie and Claude Cat, debuted on this date.



Hubie and Bertie are relatively minor characters of the Looney Tunes series, appearing in seven short films between 1943 and 1951. Their distinguishing trait in the cast is that they typically diagnose a mental illness or a lack of experience in other characters, then mercilessly exploit these weaknesses for their own advantage or to sadistically enjoy the anguish of their victims. Hubie is typically the mastermind of the duo, while Bertie eagerly follows instructions because he finds the intended results of their plans to be funny.


April 15, 1966 -
Decca Records released the fourth British studio album of The Rolling Stones, Aftermath, on this date.



Brian Jones, who was The Stones guitarist until his death in 1969, played the dulcimer on the album, an instrument you play on your lap by plucking or strumming the strings. Jones could learn just about any instrument very quickly. He had just recently learned how to play it when they recorded Lady Jane.


April 15, 1967 –
The Nancy Sinatra and Frank Sinatra very sweet and slightly weird song, Somethin’ Stupid, hit no. #1 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart on this date.



Being that this is a love song performed by a father and daughter, some awkward connotations could have prevented it from being a hit. One of the execs at Frank Sinatra's Reprise Records, through which this song was released, feared the worst and told Frank to scrap the project, but Ol' Blue Eyes wasn't worried about it. It became a hit, of course, and he included it on his 1967 album, The World We Knew.


April 15, 1972 -
Roberta Flack's breakout single, First Time Ever I Saw Your Face, goes to No. 1 on the Billboard Charts, on this date.



Folk singer Ewan MacColl wrote this in 1957 for his lover, Peggy Seeger. She was in a play and phoned him for suggestions on a song for a romantic scene. MacColl wrote this on the spot in less than an hour, playing it over the phone for her to use in her play.


April 15, 1982 -
The independent science fiction film Liquid Sky, directed by Slava Tsukerman and starring Anne Carlisle and Paula E. Sheppard, opened on this date.



Anne Carlisle playing dual roles was not originally planned. The actor who was supposed to play the character of Jimmy dropped out of the project.


April 15, 1988 -
The drama, The Moderns directed by Alan Rudolph and starring Keith Carradine, Linda Fiorentino, John Lone, and Geneviève Bujold, opened on this date.



According a number of critics and sources, this picture is somewhat of a companion piece to writer-director Alan Rudolph's later film Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle.


April 15, 1990 -
Fox TV premiered the Wayans Bros. comedy series In Living Color on this date.



For the first few episodes, an exotic-looking logo was used for the opening credits. After the band Living Colour claimed the show stole the logo from them and threatened to sue, the logo was changed to one with rather plain-type letters.


Another episode of ACME's Little Known Animal Facts.


Today in History:
April 15, 1452 -
Leonardo da Vinci was born on this date. Mr. da Vinci was one of the great minds of the Renaissance. Sadly, he is best known for having painted the Mona Lisa (in Italian, La Joconde,) in which he accurately and exquisitely captured the unmistakable smile of a dignified woman who's just farted.



For some reason, many lonely computer geeks celebrate this day by releasing computer virii in hopes that female FBI agents will break down their doors.


April 15, 1792 -
The Guillotine was first tested on human corpses on this date.

Delis all over France have to wait years for the meat slicer to be invented.


April 15, 1865 -
O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done ...



Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States, died from a bullet wound inflicted the night before by John Wilkes Booth, an actor and Confederate sympathizer.



The president's death came only six days after Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered his massive army at Appomattox, effectively ending the American Civil War.


April 15, 1910 -
In San Francisco detective Tim Riordan arrested Jolly Trixie, aka Miss Kitty Plunkett on this date, for allegedly violating the Penal Code. She was accused of being deformed and exhibiting her deformity in a Fillmore Street show house.

Plunkett said she weighed only 585 pounds as opposed to the alleged 685 pounds. Two physicians testified that she was perfectly symmetrical. You just know if television was around at the time, this would have been a reality series on Tru TV.


April 15, 1912 – 12:50 a.m. EST
A junior wireless operator at Cape Race, Newfoundland, received a message from the Virginian stating that they were attempting to reach the Titanic but had lost communication. Titanic's final signals, sent at 12:27 a.m., were "blurred and ended abruptly."



The 'unsinkable' ship Titanic sank after being torn by iceberg, with a loss of 1493 passengers on this date.



From the moment it struck the iceberg, the Titanic remained afloat for approximately 160 minute - the first lifeboat was not deployed from the ship for almost 60 minutes after the initial collision.

There were 212 staff members among the 711 survivors. Nearly all of the first-class women passengers survived, except for Ida Straus, Bessie Waldo Allison and Loraine Allison, Edith Corse Evans, and Elizabeth Ann Isham.

The last remaining survivor of the disaster, Millvina Dean, died on May 31, 2009, aged 97. She was two months old at the time.

In the race to publish a headline about the disaster, numerous newspapers gave families and loved ones false hope about the sinking of the Titanic. The World reported no fatalities, the Daily Mail declared "no lives lost," and the Belfast Telegraph claimed "no danger of loss of life." American newspapers were able to take advantage of the time difference, and their headlines were more accurate.


April 15, 1945 -
British and Canadian troops liberated the Bergen-Belsen death camp in northern Germany on this date.



Bergen-Belsen was located in a village in West Germany about 30 miles north of Hanover. About 40,000 people were liberated from the camp, although about 13,000 later died of illness. Overall, about 70,000 people died in Belsen.


April 15, 1947 -
Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in baseball when he played his first game with the Brooklyn Dodgers on this date.



Taking the field that day made him the first African-American to play Major League Baseball.


April 15, 1955 -
The first McDonald's franchise opens in Des Plains, a suburb of Chicago. Because it is the first one launched by Ray Kroc, he names it "McDonald's #1" despite the fact that the McDonald brothers had already opened eight of their chain restaurants before they began accepting licensees.



Kroc's unfortunate numbering system guarantees perpetual confusion for amateur fast food historians the world over.


April 11, 1960 -
Ella Baker led a meeting at Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina that resulted in the creation of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, which became a driving force for whites and blacks in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, on this date.



SNCC (“snick”) attracted many supporters in the North who helped raise funds to pay salaries for SNCC’s activists across the South. The group played a major role in the sit-ins, freedom rides, and the 1963 March on Washington, demonstrating that ordinary women and men, young and old, could create extraordinary change. 


April 15, 1962 -
Actress Clara Blandick, 80, who played Auntie Em in The Wizard of Oz, took an overdose of sleeping pills and tied a plastic bag around her head in a Hollywood hotel room on this date.

Prior to this, she had prominently arranged her resume and press clippings so the newspapers would get her obituary right. Police also found her suicide note, which read: “I am now about to make the great adventure. I cannot endure this agonizing pain any longer. It is all over my body. Neither can I face the impending blindness. I pray the Lord my soul to take. Amen.”


April 15, 1983 -
Tokyo Disneyland, the first Disney park built outside of the United States, opened on this date.



It is owned by The Oriental Land Company, which licenses the theme from The Walt Disney Company. Tokyo Disneyland and its companion park, Tokyo DisneySea, are the only Disney parks not owned by The Walt Disney Company either partially or outright.


April 15, 1990 -
Greta Garbo finally got her wish,



and died in New York City at age 84, on this date.


April 15, 2013 -
Two pressure cooker bombs were set off at the Boston Marathon near the finish line, killing three people and injuring another 264 people, on this date.



The bombers were Dzhokar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev. Police eventually chased down the suspects during a confrontation in which Tamerlan was run over by Dzhokar while trying to escape. Tamerlan was killed after a gun battle with the police and Dzhokar still awaits the results of his death penalty appeal.


April 15, 2014 -
More than two hundred and seventy five schoolgirls were kidnapped from their school after an attack by the Boko Haram Islamist militant group in Chibok, Nigeria, on this date.



It is believed that the girls were taken to a hard to reach area of forest in the country or out of the country. Over 150 of the girls had been freed, rescued or escaped. Of the other 112, who remain officially unaccounted for, estimates are that at least 40 have died.



And so it goes.

Laughter is the closest distance between two people.

Today is International Moment of Laughter Day. Unlike many of the 'holidays' that litter the internet, we know who created this one. The unofficial holiday, created by motivational speaker Izzy Gesell, encourages people to forget the stresses of daily life and give into the healing and relaxing power of laughter.



It's always difficult to slip monkeys into conversations, especialy in french.


April 14, 1883 -
Leo Delibes' opera Lakme, premiered in Paris on this date.



The main reason you've probably even know this opera is because of the duet, Viens and Mallika sing, Les Liens en Fleurs (The Flower Duet) in Act I has become widely used in ads, as well as in films (I'll stop now.)



That anyone knows an opera from the late 19th Century is amazing.


April 14, 1934 -
The Merrie Melodies short Beauty and the Beast, directed by Friz Freleng, debuted on this date.



This is the first Merrie Melodies cartoon to be directed by Friz Freleng by himself, as his previous solo directed cartoons from Warner Bros. were only Looney Tunes cartoons.


April 14, 1934 -
The Looney Tunes short Buddy's Garage, directed by Earl Duvall, starring Buddy, debuted on this date.



This cartoon was Earl Duvall's last cartoon with the studio. He was fired due to a drunken argument with Leon Schlesinger, so he was replaced with Jack King.


April 14, 1945 -
Tex Avery retooled his Warner Brothers cartoon, Dangerous Dan McFoo, and remade it for MGM as The Shooting of Dan McGoo. It was released on this date.



This is probably the better version, but what do I know.


April 14, 1951 -
The Looney Tunes short The Fair Haired Hare, directed by Friz Freleng, starring Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam, debuted on this date.



This was the first Bugs Bunny cartoon written by Warren Foster for Friz Freleng's unit. He has transferred from Robert McKimson's unit


April 14th, 1956 -
The first professional quality videotape machine was introduced by Ampex at the National Association of Broadcasters convention in Chicago. Magnetic videotape recording had been introduced early in the 1950s, but were considered unfeasible to replace kinescopes for broadcasting.



The machine was first used in a coast-to-coast network TV broadcast in the November 30, 1956  broadcast of Douglas Edwards and the News on CBS. For the next 20 years, quad videotape became the standard for the television industry.


April 14, 1956 -
The Looney Tunes short Mixed Master, directed by Robert McKimson, debuted on this date.



The dog in the title card bears no resemblance to either of the dogs in the short.


April 14, 1967 -
The Bee Gees released their single in England, New York Mining Disaster 1941, on this date.



The Gibb brothers wrote the song when they were sitting in the dark on some studio stairs at Polydor Records imagining they were stuck in a mine accident. There was no such event, and the lyrics are totally fictional.


April 14, 1969 -
During the live broadcast of the 41st annual Academy Awards Ceremony, the first Oscar ceremony to be televised worldwide, it was announced Katherine Hepburn and Barbra Streisand tied for Best Actress Oscar on this date.



Both Streisand and Hepburn received 3,030 votes each; it was the first exact tie in a principal Oscar category. It has been noted that had Streisand not (presumably) cast her ballot for herself, Hepburn would have won the Oscar. By one vote.


April 14, 1969 -
The bizarre 33 1/3 Revolutions Per Monkee TV special starring The Pre-fab four, The Monkees, aired on NBC TV, on this date.



This special is notable as the Monkees' final performance as a quartet until 1986, as Peter Tork left the group at the end of the special's production.


April 14, 1972 -
The first animated film to receive an X rating, Fritz the Cat, directed by Ralph Bakshi in his directorial debut, was released in the US on this date. In spite of its rating, the film went on to gross over $90 million worldwide, making it one of the highest grossing independent animated films of all time.



According to Ralph Bakshi, two of the animators didn't work on the film for long. The first just wanted to draw dirty pictures, had no animation experience, and were fired for it. The second had animation experience, but couldn't bring themselves to tell their family what they did for a living, and quit.


April 14, 1989 -
Cameron Crowe's comedy Say Anything..., starring John Cusack, Ione Skye, John Mahoney, and that boom box, went into general release in the US on this date.



Producer James L. Brooks said the movie was inspired when Brooks saw a man walking with his daughter, and wondered what would happen if the father committed a crime.


April 14, 1989 -
Tom Petty first solo album Full Moon Fever, was released on this date.



The album features contributions from members of the Heartbreakers alongside his Traveling Wilburys' bandmates Jeff Lynne, Roy Orbison, and George Harrison.


April 14, 1989 -
The British group Fine Young Cannibals had their first hit when the song She Drives Me Crazy hit #1 on the charts on this date.



After Barry Levinson heard the music the Fine Young Cannibals provided for Jonathan Demme's Something Wild, he asked them for some songs for a movie he was directing called Tin Men. Levinson wanted fresh music that would still convey the vibe of the '60s-era Baltimore portrayed in the film.


April 14, 2006 -
The bio-pix film about the 1950s pinup and bondage model Bettie Page, The Notorious Bettie Page, directed by Mary Harron and starring Gretchen Mol was released in the US, on this date.



A good friend of Bettie's, Hugh Hefner held a private screening of this movie for Bettie Page and a small group of friends. Bettie reportedly liked the movie and remarked that Gretchen Mol was much prettier than she was. Her only complaint was the film's title, saying "I was NEVER notorious!"


April 14, 2017 -
Harry Styles's debut single Sign of the Times, knocked Ed Sheeran's Shape Of You 13-week run off the top of the UK charts, on this date. The former One Direction star achieved his first No.1 as a solo artist with this release - the first from his self-titled debut album. (Harry is quite popular in our house.)



Styles premiered the single, the first song to be heard from his debut solo album, on April 7, 2017 during the BBC Radio 1 Breakfast show. "It's the song I'm most proud of writing, I think," Styles told the host Nick Grimshaw, adding, "I wrote most of the album in Jamaica, I was in Jamaica for two months. I just wanted to not be distracted… I really liked being away from everything."


Today's moment of Zen


Today in History:
April 14, 73 -
With the 10th Roman Legion about to breach the gates of their mountaintop fortress, 960 Sicarii Jews committed mass suicide at Masada on this date. According to Josephus, the radical cult selected ten swordsmen by lottery to perform the killing.



The society changes its name to the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery and the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage in 1784.


April 14, 1828 -
Noah Webster published his American Dictionary of the English Language on this date. He was a man who'd grown up in America at a time when Americans from different states could barely understand each other, because they spoke with such different accents and even different languages.



The society changes its name to the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery and the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage in 1784.


April 14, 1828 -
Noah Webster published his American Dictionary of the English Language on this date. He was a man who'd grown up in America at a time when Americans from different states could barely understand each other, because they spoke with such different accents and even different languages.



Americans in Vermont spoke French, New Yorkers spoke Dutch, and the settlers in Pennsylvania spoke German. All these different languages were influencing American English, and there were no standards of spelling or meaning.

Please note: Once Upon a Time — or maybe twice — there was an unearthly paradise called Pepperland. Eighty thousand leagues beneath the sea it lay. ...Or "lie"; I'm still not too sure.


April 14, 1865 -
So, how was the play Mrs. Lincoln?

On the evening of Good Friday, just after 10 p.m., President Abraham Lincoln received a cranial gunshot wound from well-known actor, John Wilkes Booth, while attending a performance of the play, Our America Cousin at the Ford Theatre on this date. Booth shouted out “sic semper tyrannis” (thus always to tyrants), Virginia’s state motto, after shooting Pres. Lincoln. He leaped to the stage, breaking his left leg on impact, and escaped through a side door.



Lincoln died the following day, primarily from ill-advised attempts to extract the bullet lodged in his brain.


On April 14, 1894, a public Kinetoscope parlor was opened by the Holland Bros. in New York City at 1155 Broadway, on the corner of 27th Street - the first commercial motion picture house. The venue had ten machines, set up in parallel rows of five, each showing a different movie. For 25 cents a viewer could see all the films in either row; half a dollar gave access to the entire bill.





The ten films that comprise the first commercial movie program: Barber Shop, Bertoldi (mouth support) Ena Bertoldi (a British vaudeville contortionist), Bertoldi (table contortion), Blacksmiths, Roosters (some manner of cock fight), Highland Dance, Horse Shoeing, Sandow (Eugen Sandow, a German strongman), Trapeze, and Wrestling. As historian Charles Musser described, a "profound transformation of American life and performance culture" had begun.

They were sure to have plenty of kleenex on hand.


April 14,1910 -
President William Howard Taft began a sports tradition by feebly throwing out the first pitch on baseball’s Opening Day, on this date.



Taft threw to Washington Senator pitcher Walter Johnson, who went on to hurl a shutout win, allowing the Philadelphia Phillies just one hit and ending the day with a 3-0 victory for Washington. (There is no truth to the rumor that Dr. Fauci was the president's pitching coach.)


April 14, 1912 - 11:40 pm.
Mr and Mrs Sturges are arguing about whether or not Mrs Sturges will return to Europe with her husband after the boat docks in New York. In the heat of the moment, Julia Sturges reveals to her husband Richard, that Norman, their son is not his but but rather the result of a one-night stand after one of their many bitter arguments

Meanwhile in another part of the ship, Jack and Rose witness the horrific events of the evening after Jack had sketched Rose in the nude, wearing only the Heart of the Ocean, an engagement present from Cal (afterwards, they entered William Carter's Renault and engage in sexual congress) ...but that's another story.



The Unsinkable Titantic struck an iceberg, causing damage to six of her 16 'water tight' compartments. (Lat. 41° 46' N. and Long. 50° 14' W.)



Originally, a lifeboat drill was scheduled to take place on board the Titanic on earlier on this date. However, for an unknown reason, Captain Smith canceled the drill. Many believe that had the drill taken place, more lives could have been saved.


April 14, 1924 -
Form follows function - Louis Henry Sullivan



Louis Henri Sullivan, America's greatest 19th and early 20th Century architect died on this date. His autobiography was entitled The Autobiography of an Idea.


April 14, 1941 -
Julie Frances Christie, famous beauty and renown actress and Peter Edward "Pete" Rose, Sr. (Charlie Hustle) were born on this date.





Unfortunately, unless things change, one of them has a better chance of getting into the Baseball Hall of Fame than the other.



And so it goes.