Sip happens—grab a Daiquiri!

Today is National Daiquiri Day.



It's just about the middle of the summer, so it more than appropriate to celebrate (although it might have been fun to celebrate it on July 11 - see my note on sphenopalatine ganglioneuralgia.)


It's also Flitch of Bacon day. Every year on this day, since about 1104, any married couple who could prove they had been faithful and loving to one another for one year was awarded half a pig, known as a flitch of bacon.



(The average weight of a side of pork is about 100 lbs. I want to know if the couple is supposed to bring home the side of pork themselves.)


July 19, 1941 -
MGM released the Hanna/ Barbera cartoon, The Midnight Snack, starring Tom and Jerry, on this date.



William Hanna and Joseph Barbera originally had the cat named Jasper and the mouse was Jinx, in 1940's Puss Gets the Boot cartoon. This is the first cartoon with their names, Tom Cat and Jerry Mouse.


July 15, 1941 -
The Merrie Melodies short, Inki and the Lion, directed by Chuck Jones, and starring Inki, was released on this date. This short is seldom shown on TV due to it's offensive depiction of Black people.



Due to this cartoon becoming a surprise hit with moviegoers at the time of its 1941 release, Jones directed three more Inki cartoons, Inki and the Minah Bird, Inki at the Circus, and Caveman Inki, before the character was retired for good in 1950.


July 19, 1950 -
The Walt Disney adventure film, Treasure Island, directed by Byron Haskin, and starring Bobby Driscoll, Robert Newton, Basil Sydney, and Finlay Currie, was released on this date.



The featured performance of Robert Newton as Long John Silver is so iconic that it is thought by many to be the origin of today's stereotypical "Arrrrr"-laced pirate patois.


July 19, 1960 -
The initial pilot for what would become The Dick Van Dyke Show, Head of the Family, premiered on this date.



Carl Reiner has said that he let this pilot sit for about a year after it didn't sell, and then he showed it to Sheldon Leonard who told him he liked it and it had potential, but it "needs better actors, including you!"


July 19, 1965 -
The Beatles released the single, Help (B-side I'm Down), ahead of the release of the album of the same name, on this date.



The song runs just 2:18, but packs in 267 words, making it one of the most lyrically dense hits of the era. It starts and ends on a vocal, and there are two vocal lines running throughout the song, as John Lennon sings lead while George Harrison and Paul McCartney do backgrounds, singing some of the same phrases either before or after Lennon. There are only a few seconds in the song where somebody isn't singing.


July 19, 1967 -
The Warner Bros. drama, Up the Down Staircase, directed by Robert Mulligan, and starring Sandy Dennis, Patrick Bedford, Eileen Heckart, and Jean Stapleton, was released on this date.



The U.S. State Department submitted this film to the 1967 Moscow Film Festival, in order to contradict Soviet propaganda, which implied that all American schools were racially segregated.


July 19, 1972 -
The Paramount Pictures drama, The Man, directed by Joseph Sargent, (screenplay, written by Rod Serling,) and starring James Earl Jones, Martin Balsam, Burgess Meredith, Lew Ayres, William Windom, and Barbara Rush, was released on this date.



James Earl Jones was interviewed about portraying a fictional black U.S. president a few days before Barack Obama was sworn in as President. Jones said that he had misgivings about the film, mostly because they were blindsided when the project (which was planned and budgeted as a TV movie) was released in theaters, and he wished that they'd had more time and resources to make a stronger final film.


July 19, 1985 -
Tri-Star Pictures released the drama, The Legend of Billie Jean, starring Helen Slater and Christian Slater, in the US on this date. Pat Benatar, who sang the film's theme song Invincible, famously called the film, "one of the worst movies ever made."



Christian Slater stated in an interview that while filming this movie he thought he was fated to marry Helen Slater because their last names were the same.


July 19, 1986 -
Genesis had their first (and only) #1 Hot 100 hit as Invisible Touch tops the chart, on this date.



The Invisible Touch album marked Genesis' complete transformation from complex, theatrical music (starting when Peter Gabriel was lead singer) to condensed pop songs. They lost some fans along the way, but gained many more.


July 19, 1995 -
Amy Heckerling's comic adaptation of Jane Austin's novel Emma, Clueless, starring Alicia Silverstone, Stacey Dash, Paul Rudd, Dan Hedaya, and Brittany Murphy, premiered in US theatres on this date.



Alicia Silverstone (Cher) actually did not know how to correctly pronounce "Haitians" in the classroom scene. Director Amy Heckerling told the crew not to correct her because she liked it so much and wanted it to be in the film.


July 19, 1996 -
Danny Boyle’s brilliant adaptation of Irvine Welsh’s equally celebrated novel, Trainspotting, starring Ewan McGregor, Robert Carlyle and Kelly MacDonald premiered on this date.



Kelly Macdonald, in her naiveté, invited her mother and brother to the set while filming her sex scene with Ewan McGregor.


Another album from the discount bin at The ACME Record Shoppe


Today in history:
July 19, 1692 -
Five Salem witches were hanged for the crime of witchcraft on this date, based primarily on the accusations of little girls who were bewitched.

Eventually, the village executed a total of 20 witches.

Those were some nasty little girls.


July 19, 1848 -
The women’s movement was born during the pioneering Women’s Rights Convention of Seneca Falls, New York, on this date.



Elizabeth Cady Stanton organized the two-day meeting during which they used the language of the Declaration of Independence to stake their claim to the rights they felt women were entitled to as American citizens. Stanton also introduced to the 300 men and women in attendance a radical idea for inclusion in the group’s declaration—the demand for a woman’s right to vote, “suffrage”. At that time, no women were allowed to vote anywhere on the planet, and many women, in fact, objected to the idea, thinking it was impossible.



Additionally, bloomers were introduced to the feminists gathered by Amelia Jenks Bloomer, according to fashion legend, who donned a pair at the conference where all the ladies were in dresses.


July 19, 1870 -
France attempted to declare war on Russia. Due to a typographical error, however, France inadvertently declared war on Prussia on this date and caused the Franco-Prussian War. This eventually led to the creation of Germany, which led to World War I, World War II, and the Volkswagen.



Moral: always proofread.


July 19, 1919 -
Raymonde de Laroche, the first woman to pilot a plane in 1909 and first woman to receive a pilot's license, died in an plane crash at Le Crotoy airport in France, on this date.

Raymonde de Laroche had miraculously survived three serious crashes before the fourth one claimed her.


July 19, 1937 -
The Nazis opened Entartete Kunst, the Degenerate Art show, in Munich on this date. The traveling exhibition offers up Expressionism for ridicule, carefully arranged by (offensive) subject.



The German youth were not admitted, lest they become tainted.


July 19, 1941 -
Prime Minister Winston Churchill launched his "V for Victory" campaign in Europe on this date.



The BBC World Service began regular broadcasting throughout Europe with the opening four notes of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, which in Morse Code spell V for "Victory."


July 19, 1950 -
Australian Ben Carlin, with his wife, Elinore, set out from Montreal in an amphibious jeep; the craft took to the water off Nova Scotia and crossed the entire Atlantic Ocean, making landfall at the Canary Islands after a stop in the Azores.



The Carlin’s continued their journey by land, eventually stopping in England and going to Malmo, Sweden. Carlin tried to interest British auto manufacturers in his heavily modified vehicle, but there were no takers.


July 19, 1952 -
Keep watching the skies.



During a series of UFO sightings in Washington, D.C. occurring over July 13-29, unidentified objects are picked up on D.C.'s National Airport radar system. Sightings in the region are so extensive the Air Force was prompted to hold a press conference. Conveniently, these were all "radar mirages" resulting from "temperature inversions."


July 19, 1966 -
Frank Sinatra married Mia Farrow in Las Vegas on this date.

Ava Gardner's famous comment on the union: Hah! I always knew Frank would end up in bed with a little boy!

Ouch.


July 19, 1969 -
John Fairfax, after an amazing 180 days alone at sea, became the first person to row solo across the Atlantic Ocean. (When Fairfax was asked what he did for a living, he would usually answer, "I'm a professional adventurer. I not only enjoy it, I try to make money off it.")



Two year later he rowed across the Pacific with his then-girlfriend Sylvia Cook; the trip took them 361 days. They became the first people to accomplish that feat.


July 19, 1984 -
I stand before you to proclaim tonight, America is a land where dreams can come true for all of us.



42 years ago today, U.S. Rep. Geraldine A. Ferraro of New York won the Democratic nomination for vice president at the party's convention in San Francisco.



Co-incidentally, as previously mentioned, the first women's rights convention, organized by Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, was held in Seneca Falls, NY on this date in 1848.



And so it goes.

Suddenly every meal feels historic

Today is National Caviar Day. Although it is high in sodium and cholesterol, caviar is rich in calcium and phosphorus, as well as protein, selenium, iron, magnesium, and Vitamins B12 and B6.

>

While it's normal to wash down the briny fish roe with champagne or iced vodka;

why not down shots of iced Bombay Sapphire. (Bacardi Limited, owner of the brand, knows how to reach me.)


July 18, 1936 -
The Merrie Melodies short, I Love to Singa, directed by Tex Avery, was released on this date.



Owl Jolson's first words, "Hullo, Strangah!" was the catchphrase of a character called Schlepperman who appeared on Jack Benny's radio show in the 1930s. Jack himself is parodied in the form of Jack Bunny, the host of the amateur show.


July 18, 1959 -
The Merrie Melodies short, Tweet and Lovely, directed by Tex Avery, and starring Sylvester and Tweety Bird, was released on this date.



While Tweety is bathing, Sylvester looks at him (with binoculars, as Tweety sings in his birdhouse's bathtub & discovers the spying cat,) his remark is not the normal "Ooh, I tawt I taw a putty tat!" This time he says "Ooh, I tawt I taw a peeping tom cat.".


July 18, 1964 -
The Rolling Stones score their first American hit when their cover of Buddy Holly's Not Fade Away peaks at #48 on the Hot 100.



At the time, The Rolling Stones weren't talking to each other so Gene Pitney, who knew the group through their manager Andrew Oldham, claimed it was his birthday. He asked them all to drink a water glass full of cognac to celebrate, and the result was this memorable cover of a Crickets B-side. Phil Spector is credited with playing maracas on the record but in fact he was playing an empty cognac bottle with a 50 cent piece.


July 18, 1964 –
Stan Getz & Astud Gilberto international hit The Girl From Ipanema went to No. 1 on the Billboard Charts, on this date. You may all slow dance while listening to this.



Stan Getz recorded the Getz/Gilberto album with João Gilberto, who is considered the father of Bossa Nova. In the studio, they convinced his wife Astrud, who had never sung a recorded note, to sing the English lyrics. The original choice as vocalist was Sarah Vaughan, but when Gilberto heard the English translation, he decided that Astrud should sing it. Her subtle vocal added a nuance to the song that worked surprisingly well with the music.


July 18, 1980 -
Closer, the second and final album from Joy Division, was released on this date, just two months after the suicide of founding member and singer Ian Curtis.



Despite or perhaps because of the tragedy surrounding Joy Division, the band has had an indelible effect on the post-punk music scene, which later morphed into the 1980s gothic rock, industrial and alternative rock genres inspiring bands such as The Sisters of Mercy and The Jesus and Mary Chain. Joy Division songs remain a firm favorite on the indie and goth circuits, and an be still heard in clubs and on the radio throughout the world.


July 18, 1980 -
Billy Joel held the top position of both the US albums and singles charts, on this date. His album Glass Houses contained his first and biggest No.1 hit, It's Still Rock 'n' Roll to Me.



In this song, Billy Joel was making a comment on musical styles and trends. At the end of the disco era, the music press began touting the New Wave sound, which included bands like The Police and The Cars. Joel thought that this new sound was just a variation on power-pop that had been around since the '60s. He didn't have a problem with the music, just the way it was being categorized. "I like it, but it's not particularly new," he said.


July 18, 1986 -
A Minnesota local news crew, KARE 11's chopper pilot Max Messmer and photographer Tom Empey, captured unbelievable footage of a tornado moving through the Twin Cities area, on this date.



The video, which was shown live during the 5 p.m. news, (which was the first time a tornado was broadcast live in the U.S.,) soon went global -- giving viewers a rare look at a twister from an above-ground vantage point.


July 18, 2008 -
Warner Bros. released the Christopher Nolan superhero film The Dark Knight, starring Christian Bale, Michael Caine and Heath Ledger, in US theaters, on this date.



In preparation for his role as The Joker, Heath Ledger hid away in a motel room for about six weeks. During this extended stay of seclusion, Ledger delved deep into the psychology of the character. He devoted himself to developing The Joker's every tic, namely the voice and that sadistic-sounding laugh (for the voice, Ledger's goal was to create a tone that didn't echo the work Jack Nicholson did in his 1989 performance as the Joker). Ledger's interpretation of The Joker's appearance was primarily based on the chaotic, disheveled look of punk rocker Sid Vicious combined with the psychotic mannerisms of Malcolm McDowell's character, Alex De Large, from A Clockwork Orange


July 18, 2008 -
Universal Pictures finally released it much planned ABBA jukebox musical, Mamma Mia! starring Christine Baranski, Pierce Brosnan, Dominic Cooper, Colin Firth, Amanda Seyfried, Stellan Skarsgård, Meryl Streep and Julie Walters in the US on this date.



Stellan Skarsgård on why he flashed his behind: "We decided I should be cooking on the boat. I thought I should have an apron on. The director (Phyllida Lloyd) did not know I would be naked under there, and have those butt tattoos. So when the camera rolled, I turned around right in front of it. The cameraman jumped and screamed, while Phyllida keeled over laughing."

Don't forget to tune into The ACME Eagle Hand Soap Radio Hour today


Today in History:
July 18, 64 -
Most of imperial Rome was burned to the ground because Emperor Nero had been playing the fiddle. This resulted in the persecution of Christians, many of whom were believed to have encouraged him.



You know how those early Christians love their city burning, fiddle playing, crazed Emperors.



Yes, I'm aware that Nero wasn't even in Rome at the time of the fire. At this time, I do not believe even the stringent libel laws in England cover this.


July 18, 1870 -
At the end of Vatican I, Catholic popes are proclaimed infallible by chapter four of the papal bull Pastor Aeternus. The pope's declarations on matters of faith are protected from error by the Holy Spirit. In a nutshell: whatever he says about the scripture, goes.



This is an interesting doctrine, considering how often St. Peter is himself contradicted by the Gospels.


July 18, 1913 -
Richard "Red" Skelton, was born in Vincennes, Ind., on this date. During a career that stretched through medicine shows, vaudeville, motion pictures, radio and television, the gentle Skelton created a host of characters from the silent tramp Freddie the Freeloader to the Mean Widdle Kid, who coined the catch phrase, "I dood it!"



In a People Magazine interview late in his life, Skelton admitted that he fudged his officially accepted birth year, but did not elaborate. The year 1910 is sometimes given instead of 1913, but Skelton's biographer Arthur Marx claims that the comedian told close associates he was really born in 1906.


July 18, 1918 -
I am fundamentally an optimist. Whether that comes from nature or nurture, I cannot say. Part of being optimistic is keeping one’s head pointed toward the sun, one’s feet moving forward. There were many dark moments when my faith in humanity was sorely tested, but I would not and could not give myself up to despair. That way lays defeat and death.



Today is the 108th anniversary of the birth of Nelson Mandela.


July 18, 1925 -
Today marks the 101th anniversary of the publication of Adolf Hitler's best-selling political memoir, Mein Kampf (or, in English, "I'm Crazy and I'm Gonna Kill You"). The book remains extremely popular with genocidal sociopaths and is therefore experiencing a renaissance of sales.

The book's original title was Four-and-a-Half Years of Struggle against Lies, Stupidity, and Cowardice.



Taking him at his word and assuming the little lance-corporal really had struggled against lies, stupidity, and cowardice for 54 months, one has to ask, in light of his later activities, if maybe lies, stupidity, and cowardice aren't so bad.


July 18, 1929 -
It's Screamin' Jay Hawkins Birthday.



Remember, get naked and dance around the house, just do it.


July 18, 1936 -
After Carl Mayer approached his uncle Oscar with the idea of driving a giant hot dog through Chicago streets, the first Oscar Mayer Wienermobile rolled out of General Body Company’s factory on this date.



The Wienermobile started as a smallish 13-foot affair (Carl Mayer drove around with his head sticking through a hole in the roof)


July 18, 1939 -
Hunter Stockton Thompson was born on this date.



He was once considered, armed, and dangerous. Now he is no more than soot on the window sills of his and his neighbors homes. Dr. Thompson founded the Gonzo school of journalism in the 1970s; graduates from that school can today be seen every night on cable news.

Dr. Thompson inspired the character "Uncle Duke" in the comic strip Doonesbury, by former Canadian Prime Minister Gary Trudeau.

(Uncle Duke first appeared in Doonesbury was on July 8, 1974.) Several movies have been made about Dr. Thompson's life and work and psychotic episodes. He is perhaps the only American journalist to have been played on-screen by both -



Bill Murray



and Johnny Depp.


July 18, 1947 -
British seized the Exodus 1947 ship of Jewish immigrants to Palestine on this date. The British Royal Navy intercepted the ship President Warfield, which had been renamed Exodus by its passengers, forcing the 4,000 Jewish would-be immigrants aboard back to Displaced Person camps in Germany.



Britain was still the ruling power in Palestine, which was being wracked by conflict resulting from Jewish national aspirations. The return of the Jewish immigrants, many of them survivors of Nazi persecution, heightened anti-British sentiment among Jews in Palestine and elsewhere.


On July 18, 1947, President Harry Truman signed the Presidential Succession Act. The original act of 1792 had placed the Senate president pro tempore and Speaker of the House in the line of succession, but in 1886 Congress had removed them.



The 1947 law reinserted those officials, but placed the Speaker ahead of the president pro tempore.

So now you now.


July 18, 1950 -
Ridiculous yachts and private planes and big limousines won't make people enjoy life more, and it sends out terrible messages to the people who work for them. It would be so much better if that money was spent in Africa - and it's about getting a balance.



British music entrepreneur and recently returned space jockey Richard Branson was born on this date. It doesn't suck to be Richard Branson.


July 18, 1966 -
In Los Angeles, the beaten corpse of Bobby Fuller was found sprawled across the front seat of his mother's Oldsmobile. Fuller, whose band The Bobby Fuller Four released the hit I Fought The Law, was found to have died from "forced inhalation of gasoline."



Technically, Fuller died from huffing... although circumstances point to murder.


July 18, 1969 -
Driving home from a party on Chappaquiddick Island, Senator Ted Kennedy's car goes over the side of Dike Bridge and flips over into a pond. Kennedy manages to free himself from the automobile, but his passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne, drowned.

(Once again - don't hitch a ride with a Kennedy.)



For some reason, Kennedy told no one about the accident for at least an hour, and waited until the following morning to notify local police.


July 18, 1976 -
Romanian Nadia Comaneci became the first gymnast to receive a perfect-ten score in 1976 Olympic competition.



In 2000, Comaneci was named as one of the athletes of the century by the Laureus World Sports Academy.


July 18, 1988 -
People think I'm not polite. But, what I have to say to people seems so unnecessary. I can't be forced. I'd rather just be what I feel. Even when I sing I try to imagine I'm all alone, there's nobody out there listening. I play with the notes, with the feeling. Each time the song is different for me.



Rock and Roll performer/ heroin addict Nico wiped out on her bicycle on Ibiza and died from a brain hemorrhage on this day - that, combined with a lack of medical treatment.


July 18, 1992 -
A picture of Les Horribles Cernettes was taken, which became the first ever photo posted to the World Wide Web, on this date.

Les Horribles Cernettes, or The Horrible CERN Girls, was an all-female parody-pop group, self-labelled as “the one and only high energy rock band”, formed by CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) employees and who performed at CERN events. The group was photographed at the CERN Hardronic Festival, by Silvano de Gennaro, an analyst in the Computer Science department at CERN, who also wrote additional songs for the groups.



And so it goes.

Now get out and stay out

July 17, 1937 -
The Merrie Melodies short, Egghead Rides Again, directed by Tex Avery, and starring (in the first appearance of) Egghead, a character who would eventually evolve to become Elmer Fudd, was released on this date.



The final scene would be alluded to fourteen years later in Drip-Along Daffy, in which Daffy Duck is given the job of cleaning up after the horses in the "one-horse town" when Porky Pig is chosen as the sheriff.


July 17, 1943 -
Originally released in B & W (re-release as a color version in 1968 and 1990,) the Looney Tunes short, Porky Pig's Feat premiered on this date. This is the first time the Raymond Scott composition Powerhouse is used in a Warner Bros. cartoon.



A rare appearance for Porky Pig (his last appearance in a black and white cartoon,) Daffy Duck and Bugs Bunny (his only appearance in a theatrical black and white film.)


July 17, 1943 -
The Merrie Melodies short, Tin Pan Alley Cats, directed by Bob Clampett, was released on this date. This cartoon has been banned from television airings since 1968, and is part of the Censored Eleven - these shorts were removed from television syndication because they contained heavy ethnic and racial stereotypes - particularly derogatory portrayals of Black people



This is the last short to feature a caricature of Fats Waller as he had passed away five months after the short's release.


July 17, 1956 -
The musical version of The Philadelphia Story, High Society, starring Bing Crosby, Grace Kelly and Frank Sinatra, premiered on this date.



The song True Love, written by Cole Porter especially for the movie, was a million seller and both Grace Kelly and Bing Crosby were awarded platinum records for the song. This is the only platinum record ever given to sitting royalty as Grace Kelly had become Princess Grace by the time it was awarded.


July 17, 1959 -
Alfred Hitchcock's superlative North By Northwest, starring Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint, premiered on this date.



While filming Vertigo, Alfred Hitchcock described some of the plot of this project to his star Jimmy Stewart, who naturally assumed that Hitchcock meant to cast him in the Roger Thornhill role, and was eager to play it. Actually, Hitchcock wanted Cary Grant to play the role. By the time Hitchcock realized the misunderstanding, Stewart was so anxious to play Thornhill that rejecting him would have caused a great deal of disappointment. So Hitchcock delayed production on this movie until Stewart was already safely committed to filming Otto Preminger's Anatomy of a Murder before "officially" offering him the role in this movie. Stewart had no choice. He had to turn down the offer, allowing Hitchcock to cast Grant, the actor he had wanted all along.


July 17, 1966 -
The first episode of Ultraman, a follow-up to Ultra Q, though not technically a sequel or spin-off, debuted on Japanese TV on this date.



Due to its extensive special effects involving large-scale alien creatures, the production process was challenging, making such large-scale tokusatsu TV dramas (tokusatsu is a Japanese term for live-action films or television programs that make heavy use of practical special effects,) unique worldwide at the time.


July 17, 1968 -
The premiere of the drug-induced, Big Blue Meanie-infested cartoon Beatles film Yellow Submarine, was held at the London Pavilion on this date.



In summer 1967, director George Dunning brought German artist Heinz Edelmann to London to work as production designer on this movie. The script wasn't ready, and Edelmann wasn't given a specific assignment. After two months of inactivity, he decided to quit. He vented his frustrations by drawing a series of villainous characters, which these became the Blue Meanies, the Apple Bonkers, and The Glove. Dunning loved the sketches. From then on, Edelmann was a guiding force in the production, designing most of the characters and backgrounds and helping to develop the story. He let his imagination run rampant and cultivated a style of "visual overload" (his words) to cover the plot holes and maintain interest. Many viewers assumed Edelmann got his ideas from using hallucinogens. He said, "I had never taken any drugs. I'm a conservative, working class person who'd stick to booze all his life. And so I just knew about the psychedelic experience just by hearsay. And I guessed what it was."


July 17, 1987 -
Paul Verhoeven's dystopian Sci-Fi film, RoboCop, starring Peter Weller, Nancy Allen, Daniel O'Herlihy, Ronny Cox, and Miguel Ferrer, premiered in the US on this date.



Most shots of Robocop and the police car show him getting out or preparing to get in. Peter Weller didn't fit into the police car in full costume. When he needed to be in the car, he wore the top part of the costume and sat in his underwear. To maintain the illusion that RoboCop wears the entire suit while inside a car, most shots show his robotic feet exiting first.


July 17, 1992 -
Walt Disney Pictures releases the science fiction comedy Honey, I Blew Up the Kid, directed by Randal Kleiser, on this date.



Much of the the dialogue between Wayne and Adam, such as the bedtime story and feeding time, was improvised by Rick Moranis in response to whatever Daniel Shalikar and Joshua Shalikar, the twins who played Adam, happened to say.


July 17, 1998 -
Martin Campbell's swashbuckler, The Mask of Zorro, starring Antonio Banderas, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Anthony Hopkins premiered in the US on this date.



Legendary sword trainer Bob Anderson, who trained Errol Flynn, remarked that Antonio Banderas was the most gifted swordsman with whom he had worked since Flynn. Banderas had also trained with the Spanish Olympic team for four months.


July 17, 1999 -
The series, Spongebob Squarepants, created by marine biologist and animator Stephen Hillenburg, started regularly airing on Nickelodeon on this date. (It's actually the second episode. The pilot episode had premiered in May of 1999)





Frequently, a French accented-voice comes on to note a passage of time. It's an homage to Jacques-Yves Cousteau, a leading influence on Stephen Hillenburg and his interest in marine biology.


Another unimportant moment in history


Today in History:
July 17, 1913 –
On this date, audiences attending the silent film A Noise from the Deep witnessed Mabel Normand striking Fatty Arbuckle in the face with a pie. It was purportedly the first use of the pie-in-the-face routine in film history.

It may not seem that remarkable when you consider how much history there had been in film prior to 1913, but it was an important milestone nonetheless.

The act of hitting someone in the face with a pie was itself nothing new. Hieroglyphics engraved on the sarcophagus of the ancient Egyptian King Amenhotep III, for example, depict that merry lord hurling pies of polished stone at his subjects with such force that they were frequently decapitated.

Thucydides and Herodotus both make mention of a great pie battle at Salamis, with the latter observing that "it was a moment of much hilarity until someone hit Xerxes."

Plutarch describes the wanton Messalina "grinding her pie in the face of a slave."

The merriment of the ancient world gradually succumbed to the joyless monotony of the Middle Ages. Pie facials were neglected for centuries, and the mirth did not resume until 1517, when Martin Luther nailed Pope Leo X with a cream-covered blueberry pie - the first documented case of torte reform.

Roughly a century later, Shakespeare introduced the routine to Elizabethan audiences with memorable pie-in-the-face scenes in King Lear, Hamlet, and Othello. Scholars have recently unearthed a draft of what Shakespeare clearly intended to be his comedic masterwork, Two Bakers of Venice.

After Shakespeare's pioneering work in the field, the pie-in-the-face became a staple of popular entertainment. Seen in this context, the celebrated Arbuckle pie facial was just one more step on a very long journey.



Indeed, being struck in the face by baked goods is likely to remain the most hilarious thing in the world for centuries to come.


July 17, 1917 -
Britain's King George V issues a royal proclamation changing his family's surname from Saxe-Coburg and Gotha to Windsor.



Thus, everyone is fooled into believing that a bunch of inbred Germans are really English. Which is convenient, because England just so happens to be at war with the other side of the family, Germany.

Speaking of George's cousin, Russian Czar Nicholas II was murdered with his family and servants by the Bolsheviks at Yekaterinburg on this date in 1918 (they were murdered in the middle of the night on the 17th of July.) It's too bad his cousin, George V was more concerned with changing his Germanic surname then saving his cousin.



This included his daughter Anastasia, who may not actually have been killed with the rest of them but was almost certainly killed along with the rest of them despite persistent rumors to the contrary--even in the face of almost insurmountable evidence suggesting otherwise (except when interpreted differently). Even if she wasn't dead then, she's certainly dead now. This has been scientifically proven by scientists who ought to know.


July 17, 1918 -
The RMS Carpathia, famous for rescuing 705 survivors from the RMS Titanic six years earlier, sank off the coast of Ireland after being torpedoed by a German U-boat, on this date.



While 5 crew member were killed in the attack, 57 passengers and the remaining 218 crew members survived to board lifeboats off the sinking vessel.


July 17, 1936 -
General Francisco Franco, low level Spanish Evil Stooge, seizes control of the Canary Islands (in the misguided belief that Spain could become a world power by controlling the supply of small yellow birdies), signaling the start of the three-year Spanish Civil War.

And he's still dead.


July 17, 1938 -
On this date, Douglas Corrigan took off from Brooklyn's Floyd Bennett Field for a cross-country flight to the West Coast in his nine-year-old, single-engine Curtiss Robin airplane.



Twenty-eight hours later he landed in Dublin, Ireland, thus earning himself the nickname "Wrong Way Corrigan" and becoming the patron saint of baggage handlers.


July 17, 1945 -
President Harry Truman, Soviet leader Josef Stalin and British Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill began meeting at Potsdam in the final Allied summit of World War II on this date.



Among the issues the delegates were there to negotiate terms for the end of World War II and to hash out were the borders of a post WWII Europe. What the delegates there didn't know was Truman had a coded telegram in his pocket confirming the success of the Trinity test and Churchill was about to lose a general election and be replaced as Prime Minister by Clement Attlee.


July 17, 1947 –
Jackie Robinson was playing his historic first season with the Dodgers, the Yankees finally lost after 19 straight victories, Perry Como topped the Billboard charts with "Chi-Baba,Chi-Baba (My Bambino Go to Sleep)," and Jack Kerouac began his On the Road trip on this date. He left his mother's apartment in Ozone Park, wound up on the West Side IRT local, passed Columbia University, where he had dropped out, and got off the train at the 242nd Street terminal.

At 242nd Street (near Van Cortlandt Park), he boarded a trolley to Yonkers, transferred to another that took him as far as it would go, and then hitchhiked farther up the Hudson. He wanted to take the "long red line called Route 6" that he had seen on a map, and the nearest place to join it was the Bear Mountain Bridge.



When he got there, he discovered that little traffic passed through that semi-wilderness, and while waiting futilely for a ride, he was drenched in a thunderstorm. Humiliated by his "stupid hearthside idea that it would be wonderful to follow one great red line across America," he ended up taking a bus back to New York City - and then another all the way to Chicago. From there, he caught a third bus to the Chicago suburbs and began hitchhiking to Denver to see friends he had made in New York, including Neal Cassady.



Such is the stuff of great literature: a subway ride that many of you loyal readers have made countless times is transformed into the opening trip of the classic Beat Generation novel On the Road.


July 17, 1952 -
It's David Hasselhoff's (noted 'actor', 'singer', talent judge, hamburger connoisseur and drunk) birthday!



Yeah for David! Yeah for Germany!



(David shares his birthday with Angela Merkel born two years later in 1954 - co-incidence, you be the judge.)


July 17, 1955 -
That place is my baby, and I would prostitute myself for it. - Walt Disney

Disneyland, the happiest place in the world, opens in Anaheim, California on this date. Things didn't go so well on that first day.



A 15 day heat wave raised temperatures up to 110 degrees Fahrenheit. Also, due to a plumbers strike, few water fountains were operating in the hot weather. Asphalt still steaming, because it had been laid the night before, literally "trapping" high heeled shoes. To add to the chaos, a gas leak forced the closing of several sections of the park.



If things didn't turn around, I shudder at the thought of Ole Walt and his pal J. Edgar, having to walk the street in matching lipstick, handbag and stiletto, offering to 'go around the world' for 20 bucks to pay back his loans.


July 17, 1959 -
You've got to have something to eat and a little love in your life before you can hold still for any damn body's sermon on how to behave.







Billie Holiday died in a New York City hospital from cirrhosis of the liver after years of alcohol abuse, aged 43, (while under arrest for heroin possession, with Police officers stationed at the door to her room,) on this date.


July 17, 1975 -
Launched two days previously, Apollo 18 and Soyuz 19 successfully docked and crew member of the two shuttles shook hands in space on this date.



It was the first orbital docking of spacecraft of two different nations


July 17, 1984 –
The national drinking age in the United States was changed from 18 to 21.



As your old doctor had already been drinking Formaldehyde for 11 years and was over 21, what did I care.


July 17, 1996 -
TWA flight 800, bound for Paris, exploded 12 minutes after takeoff from John F. Kennedy airport, killing all 230 people on board, on this date.



Though there was speculation, no evidence of a terrorist attack was ever found.



And so it goes.