Cartoons are tiny little lifeboats

Today is International Animation Day. First observed in 2002, the day commemorates the first public performance of Emile Reynaud’s Theatre Optique at the Grevin Museum in Paris in 1892.



So Kids make sure you grab a bowl of the sugary breakfast cereal and watch your favorite cartoons.


October 28, 1944 -
The Merrie Melodies short, The Old Grey Hare, directed by Bob Clampett, and starring Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd, was released on this date.



Musical Director Carl W. Stalling's name appears in a newspaper article Elmer Fudd reads at the beginning of this cartoon. The headline reads, "Smellevision Replaces Television" followed by the byline, "Carl Stalling sez, 'It Will Never Work!'"


October 28, 1947 -
An overlooked yet still powerful film-noir, Nightmare Alley, was directed by Edmund Goulding, and starring Tyrone Power, Joan Blondell, Coleen Gray, and Helen Walker went into general release on this date.



The film did not initially do well, as the public found it difficult to accept Tyrone Powell as the bad guy. Studio head Darryl F. Zanuck found this movie so generally distasteful that he eventually took it out of circulation, but it was theatrically re-released in 1956-1957, did good business, particularly in the drive-in circuit, and received wide distribution.


October 28, 1950 -
The eternally 39-year old Benjamin Kubelsky (who was actually 56 at the time,) transitioned his successful radio program to television on this date when The Jack Benny Show premiered on CBS-TV.



Most of Jack Benny's original radio cast appeared on television with him, including Don Wilson, Eddie 'Rochester' Anderson, Dennis Day, and his real-life wife Mary Livingstone made several guest appearances. In one episode, Jack dreamed that he and Mary (his platonic friend on the show) were married and had a teenage daughter. Their daughter was played by their real daughter, Joan Benny.


October 28, 1950 -
The Looney Tunes short, Pop 'Im Pop! , directed by Bob McKimson and starring Sylvester the Cat, was released on this date.



The curious looking object behind Sylvester that's seen when he's first talking to his son is an old fashioned home incinerator. Back in the day, folks simply burned their rubbish in such a structure. Escaping sparks were commonly seen when it was in use.br />

October 28, 1956 -
Elvis Presley made his second appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, (Ed Sullivan had sufficient recovered from his near fatal auto accident to resume host the program,) on this date.



On the show besides Hound Dog, Elvis performed, Don't Be Cruel, Love Me and Love Me Tender.



Elvis also received a polio vaccination backstage that evening on the Ed Sullivan Show. This single event is credited with raising immunization levels in the United States from 0.6% to over 80% in just six months.


October, 28, 1957 -
Federico Fellini's Le Notti di Cabiria (Nights of Cabiria) opened in the US on this date. (A good friend of mine named her daughter after Giulietta Masina. )



Federico Fellini cast film editor Leo Catozzo as the "man with the sack" and wanted to keep that sequence in the release print over the objections of producer Dino De Laurentiis. De Laurentiis thought the scene slowed the film down, finally had to resort to stealing the scene from the editing room. According to DeLaurentiis, about 5-7 years after its original release, Fellini rang him, and begged to get the scene back, so he could restore it. As Cabiria had now achieved a classic status, the producer agreed.


October 28, 1962 -
Gerry and Sylvia Anderson third attempt at frightening children with Supermarionation - Fireball XL5 premiered in the UK, on this date. Remember to stick around for the end credits to sing along with the theme!



Although Supercar had been shown in syndication, this was the first Gerry Anderson' Supermarionation series to appear on US network television (NBC, on Saturday mornings, between 1963 and 1965). This was their last black and white puppet TV series.


October 28, 1972 -
Stevie Wonder released his 15th studio album Talking Book on this date.



The album's first track, You Are the Sunshine of My Life, hit No.1 on the Billboard charts, and earned Wonder his first Grammy Award. The album featured a guest appearance of Jeff Beck on the track Superstition.


October 28, 1978 -
The group KISS, may have thought that they had dodged a huge career bullet when they turned down appearing in the disasterous BeeGee's Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band fiasco, due to being contractually obliged to star in another feature. Karma though had other thoughts - The Hanna-Barbera produced KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park premiered on NBC-TV on this date.



All four members of KISS deeply regret that they acted in it. They hate the movie and still despise it being created.


October 28, 1989 -
Janet Jackson started a four week run at No.1 on the US album chart with Janet Jackson's Rhythm Nation 1814 on this date.



As was the case with many of her hits of this era, Janet Jackson wrote Rhythm Nation with the songwriting and production team of Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. The trio got the idea for the song after seeing news stories about the Stockton playground murders, when Patrick Purdy shot up a school playground in California and killed five children before turning the gun on himself. They wanted to write a positive song focusing on the "Nation" of people they came across in New York dance clubs. These people came to the clubs from many different backgrounds and were united in their love for the music.


Another episode of ACME's Little Known Animal Facts


Today in History:
October 28, 4004 BC -
You never call, you never write - God.



According to Biblical calculations by our pal, Archbishop James Ussher,



God created Adam and Eve five days after finishing the rest of the universe.


October 28, 1886 -
The Statue of Liberty was dedicated at Liberty Island, New York, by President Grover Cleveland on this date. The statue weighs 225 tons and is 152 feet tall. It was originally known as Liberty Enlightening the World. Lady Liberty, as she came to be called, quickly become a symbol of America, partly because she was such a striking visual symbol of our national reverence for liberty, partly because of the five-dollar hot dogs and ten-dollar plastic replicas sold at her feet.

The statue's inscription was written by poet Emma Lazarus, and attributes the following exhortation from Lady Liberty: Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!



(Certain former misinformed administrative officials misunderstand exactly for whom the light of liberty shines. May I humbly suggest the light shines directly for certain former administration officials to be shown the entrance to prison.)


Exactly thirty-three years later, in 1919, Congress passed a law prohibiting alcohol (The Volstead Act.)



Ultimately, it resulted in toxic, bootlegged alcohol that killed more people than legal alcohol had. With alcohol outlawed, only outlaws had drinks and the atmosphere fosters Mafia encroachment into legitimate businesses. Fortunately there were an awful lot of them and they overturned the law as soon as they were sober enough to vote.


October 28, 1922 -
King Victor Emmanuel III, with the assistance of the Catholic Church, handed over power to fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, on this date.



Pope Pius XI declared Mussolini is a man sent by divine providence. In return for this endorsement, the silly dictator would go on to sign the Lateran treaty, restoring papal sovereignty over the Vatican.

But at least the trains ran on time.


October 28, 1943 –
The supposed ‘Philadelphia Experiment,’ involving teleportation or invisibility by the US Navy, took place with the destroyer escort ship, the USS Eldridge.



The US Navy maintains that no such experiment occurred and details of the story contradict ‘well-established facts about the Eldridge.’


October 28, 1948 -
The Nobel committee announces that Swiss chemist Paul Müller had won the 1948 chemistry prize on this date.



He discovered the unusual insecticidal properties of 1,1,1-trichloro-2,2- bis(p-chlorophenyl)ethane. Thanks to Mueller, the world embraces the phenomenal bug-killer... until somebody discovers that the hydrocarbon, popularly known as DDT, also excels at causing cancer.


October 28, 1955 -
William Henry Gates III was born in Seattle on this date. With the world uneasiness, Bill's agressive can recycling has helped him deal with his drop from the number five position to number six (as of yesterday) on Forbes' world billionaire list. I believe he is holding his own with the 1%ers.



Benjamin Franklin, Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Henry Ford and Bill Gates had all, at least once during their lives, been the richest man in the world. They shared one thing in common – a father named William.


October 28, 1962 -
The Cuban Missile Crisis officially ended when Nikita Khrushchev formally agreed to dismantle the Soviet missiles and remove them from Cuba. In exchange, the US agreed not to invade Cuba and respect its sovereignty.



The world breathed a sigh of relief as the tense situation that almost caused a nuclear war came to an end.


October 28, 1963 -
A New York DJ, Murray Kaufman, played a song from a little known British group on this date.

It is believed that Murray the K's playing of She Loves You by The Beatles on this date, was the first time a Beatles song was played on an American radio station.


October 28, 1965 -
Pope Paul VI issued a decree, Nostra Aetate, which among other things, absolved Jews of collective guilt for the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

I can chart my moral decline to this date. When informed of this a few years later, I told my seventh grade religious teacher, "Gee, that was awfully big of him."


October 28, 1965 -
The Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Missouri, the tallest memorial in the US, was completed on this date. The famous arch, designed by architect Eero Saarinen and structural engineer Hannskarl Bandel, is 603 feet (about 184 meters) tall and 630 feet (about 192 meters) wide.



The memorial was built as a monument to Thomas Jefferson and all those pioneers for whom St. Louis was the Gateway to the West.


October 28, 1971 -
Little remembered today but the first British (and only British made and launched) satellite, Prospero, went up this date, (after the announcement of the cancellation of the British Space program just months earlier.)



Britain becomes the sixth nation with its satellite launched into orbit by a Black Arrow rocket from Woomera, Australia. The mission of the Prospero, a Black Knight 1 satellite, is to test solar cells and other technologies experiments.


And on a personal note:

Happy Birthday Olivia



And so it goes

Beauty is in the eye of the beer holder

Today is National American Beer Day - but please follow along as this will get confusing:

National Beer Day,is celebrated on April 7.
International Beer Day,is celebrated on the first Friday in August5.
National Drink Beer Day,is celebrated on September 28, celebrated around Octoberfest, which is celebrated in Munich.



While beer is not my go to beverage of choice, I'm happy to down a frosty cold one or two.


October 27, 1954 -
"... It was all started by a mouse."

Walt Disney's first TV show, Disneyland, premiered on ABC-TV on this date.



All of the ABC episodes were filmed in color, even though they aired in black and white. In general, ABC did not broadcast in color until the mid 1960s. During the years on ABC, the show went by the title of Disneyland, with one of four weekly sub titles, either Fantasyland, Frontierland, Adventureland or Tomorrowland, depending on the category of that week's show.


October 27, 1955 -
The quintessential 50s movie (although quite startling at the time,) Nicholas Ray's masterful, Rebel Without a Cause, was released on this date.



Natalie Wood was first considered too young for the role of Judy. Even though she was the same age as the character, she was at least 5 years younger than all the other candidates except Margaret O'Brien. She adopted a mature woman's hairstyle, started wearing heavy eye makeup and eventually attracted the notice of director Nicholas Ray, 43, who began an affair with the 16-year-old and gave her the part.


October 37, 1956 -
The Merrie Melodies short, Wideo Wabbit, directed by Bob McKimson, and starring Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd, was released on this date.



The second time in which Bugs disguises himself as an usher to send someone into a show that involved Indians and then trick his enemy into a hunter/sportsman related show was in People Are Bunny. Only that time, the victim of Bugs' trick was Daffy Duck.


October 27, 1964 -
Another Paddy Chayefsky scripted classic from the 60s (although unappreciated), The Americanization of Emily, starring James Garner and Julie Andrews, premiered on this date.



Producer Martin Ransohoff removed director William Wyler from this movie, as Wyler wanted to change Paddy Chayefsky's script. It was a rare instance in which a producer supported a screenwriter over a director, particularly one of Wyler's caliber. As Chayefsky was known to have guarantees written into his contracts protecting his scripts, Ransohoff may have had no choice but to replace Wyler with Arthur Hiller.


October 27, 1966 -
The Star Trek episode, Miri, where the Enterprise discovers an exact duplicate of Earth, where the only survivors of a deadly plague are the planet’s prepubescent children, premiered on this date.



The girl held by Kirk as he rushes to the lab with his newly-recovered communicator is played by William Shatner's daughter Melanie Shatner. Leonard Nimoy was asked to allow his children to appear as extras but Nimoy refused to let his children be involved in show business. His son, Adam Nimoy, did grow up to become a television director, including a few episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation.


October 27, 1966 -
The third Charles Schultz Peanuts special, It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, (directed again by Bill Melendez,) premiered on this date.



This is the only special where Pig Pen is shown wearing glasses. You can see them when he is with the other kids at the Halloween party around the apple tub just before Lucy bobs for an apple.


October 27, 1982 -
Prince's fifth album, 1999, was released on this date. It becomes his breakthrough, selling well over 5 million copies worldwide, thanks to Little Red Corvette and the title track.



The album helped propel him to superstar status, a title he lived up to with electrifying live shows and a startlingly prolific output of material, including music, movies and videos.


October 27, 1988 -
U2's film Rattle And Hum, received its world wide premiere in the group's hometown of Dublin on this date.



One of the band's goals with this film was to recognize its musical roots, which is shown by the large number of homages: The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Elvis Presley, Van Morrison, Billie Holiday, John Coltrane, B.B. King, Bob Dylan, Jerry Lee Lewis and Jimi Hendrix are all alluded to directly or indirectly (and the studio recording sessions included further homages to Presley, Dylan, and The Righteous Brothers).


October 27, 1995 -
One of the least happiest films ever made, Leaving Las Vegas, directed by Mike Figgis and starring Nicolas Cage, and Elisabeth Shue went into limited release in the US on this date.



Author John O'Brien, on whose novel this movie is based, committed suicide two weeks after the movie went into production. Director Mike Figgis contemplated abandoning the project, but decided the film would make a good memorial for O'Brien.


October 27, 1998 -
R.E.M. appeared on The Jools Holland Show, Later, which was recorded at BBC TV Centre on this date.



Two days earlier, R.E.M. played almost the identical concert for BBC Radio 1 at the Radio Theater at Broadcasting House in London for an audience primarily consisting of fan club members and contest winners.


Another moment of Zen


Today in History:
On October 27, 312, on the eve of the Battle of the Milvian Bridge, Constantine had a vision assuring him of victory in the name of the Christian God.



As emperor, Constantine served as a patron for the church, contributing to its rapid growth in the fourth century. (So just that I have this right - if sunglasses had been invented and he didn't have sun glare in his eyes, most of the world would still be engaged in wanton sodomy.)


October 27, 1553 -
Michael Servetus, noted theologian, was honored in Switzerland for his discovery of the pulmonary circulation of the blood, on this date by being burned at the stake just outside Geneva with what was believed to be the last copy of his writing chained to his leg. Historians record his last words as: "Jesus, Son of the Eternal God, have mercy on me."

John Calvin is given a good deal of credit for having arranged these honors, which may have had something to do with his own gratitude to Mr. Servetus for having raised an important theological question.

Throughout history, such important theological questions have caused almost as much bloodshed as important theological answers. That doesn't mean theology's an especially bloody field - there's been just as much carnage from philosophy, politic



It's probably all that blood that puts the 'human' in the humanities or as one of my faith readers put it, the 'hard' in hard science.


October 27, 1682 -
The City of Brotherly Love, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania was founded on this date. In 1681, as part of a repayment of a debt, Charles II of England granted William Penn a charter for what would become the Pennsylvania colony. Penn's ship anchored off the coast of New Castle, Delaware, on October 27, 1682, and he arrived in Philadelphia (which did not exist at the time, if you are following along, the Lenni Lenape Indians certainly didn't call this place Philadelphia) a few days after that.



He expanded the city west to the bank of the Schuylkill River, for a total of 1,200 acres. Streets were laid out in a gridiron system. Except for the two widest streets, High (now Market) and Broad, the streets were named after prominent landowners who owned adjacent lots. And no cheese steaks were involved.


October 27, 1858 -
Rowland H. Macy opened R.H. Macy Dry Goods on the corner of Sixth Ave. and 14th St. in New York City on this date.

First day sales were $11.06 but by the end of the first year, sales totaled almost $90,000. By 1877, R.H. Macy and Co. had become a full-fledged department store occupying 11 adjacent buildings.


October 27, 1904 -
The first underground segment of the New York City Subway officially opened on this date, running from City Hall in lower Manhattan to Broadway in Harlem.



The fare was a nickel and on the first day the trains carried over 150,000 passengers. Today it is one of the most extensive public transportation systems in the world. And with any luck, they will extend the Q line to 125th Street within my lifetime.


October 27, 1939 -
John Cleese, actor, writer and all around funny guy was born on this date. (Oh yeah, I think he was in a comedy group in the late 60s, early 70s.)



I hope John continues being funny and stops giving his opinion on how terrible it was to have been in Monty Python.


October 27, 1950 -
There is no such thing as inner peace. There is only nervousness or death. Any attempt to prove otherwise constitutes unacceptable behavior.



Frances Ann Lebowitz, author, social commentator and famous curmudgeon, was born on this date.


October 27, 1962 -
The British comedy stage revue Beyond the Fringe, written by and starring Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Jonathan Miller and Alan Bennett opening in NYC on this date.



This show is often seen as the beginning of the British satirical comedy of the 60s and many of the members Monty Python found this show highly influential.


October 27, 1964 -
In a private ceremony, Sonny and Cher exchanged rings in Tijuana (on this date) and told others they were married,



they were not legally married until 1969.


October 27, 2013 -
I'm an artist and that means I can be as egotistical as I want to be.



Music legend (and general major pain in the ass) Lou Reed died on this date.



And so it goes

Hopefully, you started celebrating during the weekend

October 26, 899 -
Alfred the Great, King of the Anglo-Saxons, died (probably from severe hemorrhoids) on this date,



but that has nothing to do with the fact that today we celebrate National Pumpkin Day and Howl at the Moon Day today.



So don't make us wait - howl at the moon, preferably while eating pumpkin pie.


October 26, 1940 -
The Merrie Melodies short, Good Night Elmer, directed by Chuck Jones and starring Elmer Fudd, was released on this date.



Arthur Q. Bryan didn't voice Elmer in this short, as Elmer did not have any dialogue. Mel Blanc provided the weeping and bawling heard at the end.


October 26, 1959 -
A gentle and yet still relevant Cold War comedy, The Mouse that Roared, opened in the US on this date.



While filming, Peter Sellers was acting on stage in the comedy Brouhaha, which also dealt with a mythical kingdom whose ruler develops an outlandish plot to secure U.S. aid. Five days a week, he had to be at the studio at 6:30 a.m. for makeup and wardrobe, then get himself to the theatre by 7 p.m. During location shooting, a driver picked him up at the theatre after the performance and he slept in the car on the way to the film shoot.


October 26, 1962 -
The Crawford - Davis horror camp classic, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? opened in NYC on this date.



In her book This N' That, Bette Davis said she had a lot of control over how her makeup should be done for the film. She imagined the older Jane as someone who would never wash her face, just put on another layer of makeup. When her daughter, Barbara Merrill, first saw her in full "Jane" makeup, she said, "Oh, mother, this time you've gone too far."


October 26, 1967 -
A gentle and yet still relevant Cold War comedy, The Mouse that Roared, directed by Jack Arnold, and starring Peter Sellers, Jean Seberg, and William Hartnell, opened in the US on this date.



In an interview, Alan Arkin talked about the Oscar nominations he received for his early major film roles (The Russians Are Coming the Russians Are Coming and The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter). When asked if he was surprised that he was overlooked for Wait Until Dark, his second movie, he replied: "You don't get nominated for being mean to Audrey Hepburn!"


October 26, 1970 -
Elton John released his first hit single Your Song, on this date.



This was one of the first songs John wrote with Bernie Taupin. They met after a record company gave John some of Taupin's lyrics to work with. Eventually, they both moved into John's parents' house, where they started working together.


October 26, 1972 -
Ringo Starr and singer Lulu appear in non-speaking cameos on the Monty Python's Flying Circus episode Mr And Mrs Brian Norris' Ford Popular on this date.



The tramp (Michael Palin) enters and sits between them and begins his introduction, in David Frost style: “Hello, good evening, welcome … It’s …” a cue for the closing titles of the program to run. While Lulu gets up and storms off stage in a huff, Ringo (still not uttering a single word) becomes involved in a fight with the tramp.


October 26, 1982 -
TV's longest dream sequence, St. Elsewhere, premiered on NBC-TV on this date.



The show never won high ratings but it lasted six seasons on NBC because it appealed to the desirable (for advertisers) educated 18-49 year old demographic.


October 26, 1984 -
James Cameron's sci-fi classic, The Terminator starring the occasionally nude Arnold Schwarzenegger and Linda Hamilton premiered in the US on this date.



One afternoon during a break in filming, Arnold Schwarzenegger went into a restaurant in downtown L.A. to get some lunch and realized all too late that he was still in Terminator makeup - with a missing eye, exposed jawbone and burned flesh.


October 26, 2001 -
Richard Kelly's cult classic film, Donnie Darko, starring Jake Gyllenhaal went into limited release in US theaters on this date.



Writer and director Richard Kelly came up with the idea for the future blobs while watching football. John Madden used to use a "telestrator", where he'd diagram a paused video to show where the players were about to go moments before letting the tape roll. Kelly watched this while high, and started to think about what would happen, hypothetically, if "someone upstairs" was doing that to humans. Fittingly enough, Donnie first notices the future blobs while watching football.


Word of the Day.


Today in History:
October 26, 1440 -
Gilles de Rais, French marshal and (alleged) depraved killer of 140 children, was strangled then thrown onto slow fire on this date.



A brilliant young French knight, he was believed to either have cracked over the torture and death of his true love, Jeanne d'Arc, the Maid of Orleans or some theorists consider Gilles the victim of a plot to acquire his lands.


On this date, in 1825, New York City becomes a World Port with the opening of the Erie Canal; a river waterway between Hudson River and Lake Erie opened.



It cut through 363 miles of wilderness and measured 40 feet wide and 4 feet deep. It had 18 aqueducts and 83 locks and rose 568 feet from the Hudson River to Lake Erie.



Toll receipts paid back the $7.5 million construction cost within ten years. (This will all be on the test.)


October 26, 1881 -
Wyatt Earp, his two brothers and Doc Holliday showed up at the OK Corral in Tombstone, Arizona, to disarm the Clanton and McLaury boys, who were in violation of a ban on carrying guns in the city limits.



This became the famous Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. Billy Clanton and Tom and Frank McLowery were killed; Earp's brothers were wounded. “OK” probably referred to two families, Ormsby & Kimberly, who owned the nearby corral.


October 26, 1944 -
Freemason and Vice President Harry S Truman publicly denies (yet again) ever having been a member of the Ku Klux Klan.

Unfortunately for him, while never an active member, he did pay the $10 membership dues in 1922 in order to get backing for a judgeship he was seeking back in Missouri.

I can't even imagine the feeding frenzy that would have go on today.


October 26, 1965 -
Queen Elizabeth decorated The Beatles with the Order of the British Empire, at Buckingham Palace, on this date.



The Beatles, ever polite, allowed Her Majesty to add chintz curtains and tufted sofas in their living rooms.


October 26, 1970 -
Doonesbury, the comic strip by Gary Trudeau, premiered in 28 newspapers across the U.S. on this date.

The strip is still going strong: a new strip occasionally published on Sundays.

Who knew? (Who reads newspapers anymore?)


October 26, 1979 -
Kim Jae Kyu, director of South Korea's central intelligence agency, "accidentally" shot President Park Chung Hee to death, also killing Park's bodyguard. Park had been president (dictator, effectively) since 1961. Kim was executed the following May for his attempted coup d'etat. (I hate when someone in my cabinet tries to assassinate me.)



In 2005 at the New York Film Festival, the film, The President's Last Bang, recounted the events.


October 26, 1984 -
19-year-old John McCollum shot and killed himself while listening to Ozzy Osbourne records on this date. One year later, McCollum's parents file suit against Ozzy and CBS Records, alleging that the song Suicide Solution from the album Blizzard of Ozz contributed to their son's death.



Except that the song's subject was quite plainly alcohol addiction. The trial court dismissed the McCollum's complaint. (Please, only watch the video once, with adult supervision. And for heaven's sake, don't try to play it backwards!)


October 26, 1991 -
A sudden wind uprooted a 485-pound umbrella, part of an outdoor 'art project' installed by Christo, in the Tejon Pass north of Los Angeles and struck Lori Keevil-Matthews, 33 years old, of Camarillo, California, crushing her to death against a boulder.



That must really suck being killed by an old Hollies song.



And so it goes