Have an egg or two

The American Egg Board has declared that it is National Egg Day today.







If you've been to the supermarket lately, you undoubtedly have noticed that egg prices have once again fluctated, because of 'rising gas prices'. Please direct your comments to the Egg Board, I've tried best to keep prices down.


Today is also the Memorial to Broken Dolls Day (Ningyo Kuyo) in Japan. (I've also seen the date as being celebrated on the first Sunday in June.)



On this day each year, children bring their broken dolls to Buddhist shrines for funeral rituals. After the ceremony, the dolls are buried and enshrined.



This temple should be located on the Island of Misfit Toys.


June 3, 1939 -
The Looney Tunes short, Polar Pals, directed by Bob Clampett, starring Porky Pig, debuted on this date.



There is visible snow falling on the opening credits sequence, including the "Starring Porky" title card.


June 3, 1939 -
The Merrie Melodies short, Believe It or Else, directed by Tex Avery, starring Elmer Fudd/ Egghead, debuted on this date.



This cartoon marks the final time that Elmer Fudd was voiced by Danny Webb.


June 3, 1944 -
The Looney Tunes short, Angel Puss, directed by Chuck Jones, debuted on this date. Because the film contains stereotypical portrayals of African-Americans, it is among the group of controversial cartoons known to animation buffs as the Censored Eleven.



This cartoon will probably never air on television again, and only non-Warner Bros. licensed public domain video tapes will probably ever have these cartoons on them.


June 3, 1955 -
The Billy Wilder comedy, The Seven Year Itch, opened on this date.



Billy Wilder preferred shooting in black and white, but Marilyn Monroe's contract with Fox called for all of her movies to be shot in color. Monroe always thought that she looked far more attractive and glamorous in color than in black and white.


June 3, 1956 -
The town of Santa Cruz, California, just seventy miles from San Francisco, banned rock-and-roll at public gatherings, calling the music “detrimental to both the health and morals of our youth and community," on this date.



Santa Cruz authorities cited a concert the previous night by the local band Chuck Higgins and his Orchestra, that produced a crowd of several hundred teenagers “engaged in suggestive, stimulating and tantalizing motions induced by the provocative rhythms” by the all African-American band. It's been all downhill ever since.


June 3, 1958 -
The 50s drive-in movie, The Fiend Without A Face, directed by Arthur Crabtree and starring Marshall Thompson, Kynaston Reeves, Michael Balfour, and Kim Parker, slithered into theatres on this date.



A publicity stunt went somewhat wrong in New York City. The Rialto Theater in Times Square featured a sidewalk promotion for the film--one of the prop brain creatures was displayed in a cage on the sidewalk outside the theater, wired for sound and motion. However, the crowd it attracted grew so large that they were snarling pedestrian and vehicle traffic, and the police demanded that it be removed.


June 3, 1961 -
The Looney Tunes short, Lickety-Splat, directed by Chuck Jones, starring Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner, debuted on this date.



This Road Runner cartoon is unique in that it features a single prominent gag that runs through most of the cartoon; in this case, the dart bombs.


June 3, 1964 -
The Rolling Stones taped their U.S. (national) television debut on the ABC series The Hollywood Palace, hosted by Dean Martin, on this date.



The Stones’ first television appearance stateside was a June 2nd interview on The Les Crane Show (shown locally in New York City.)


June 3, 1967 -
Aretha Franklin's cover of the Otis Reading song Respect hits #1 in America, one this date.



Franklin's cover is by far the best-known version, but this was an important song for Otis Redding. It was just his second Top 40 hit, following I've Been Loving You Too Long (To Stop Now), and it helped establish Redding on mainstream radio. Otis also performed the song at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967; this was a defining performance for the singer, who died in a plane crash six months later.


June 3, 1967 -
The Doors release a truncated version of Light My Fire as a single, trimming it from an album-awesome 6:50 to a radio-friendly 2:52.



This became The Doors' signature song. Included on their first album, it was a huge hit and launched them to stardom. Before it was released, The Doors were an underground band popular in the Los Angeles area, but Light My Fire got the attention of a mass audience.


June 3, 1969 -
The last episode of the original Star Trek series (Turnabout Intruder) aired on NBC-TV, on this date.



This episode was originally scheduled for broadcast on March 28, 1969. Special network coverage of the death of Dwight D.Eisenhower pre-empted it, and it didn't air until June 3.


June 3, 1972 -
The Staple Singers' song, I'll Take You There, hits #1 as the group makes a successful transition from gospel to secular music.



This was the first of two #1 hits for the Staple Singers, the other is Let's Do It Again. The Staple Singers were among the first groups to move from gospel to inspirational soul music. Said lead singer Mavis Staples: "When we heard Dr. Martin Luther King preach, we said, 'If he can preach this, we can sing it.'"


June 03, 1977 -
Bob Marley and the Wailers' ninth studio album, Exodus, was released on this date.



In 1999, Time magazine named Exodus the best album of the 20th century.


June 3, 1983 -
Warner Bros. Pictures comedy, The Man with Two Brains, directed by Carl Reiner and starring Steve Martin, Kathleen Turner, and David Warner.



Kathleen Turner said she used a body double for a sex scene in this movie: "I was seriously offended by the scene in which my character is about to have her ass rubbed. I did not think that was funny at all. I told them to get someone else's ass to rub."


June 3, 1988 -
Penny Marshall's iconic film about growing up, Big, starring Tom Hanks, Elizabeth Perkins, and Robert Loggia, premiered on this date.



Penny Marshall became the first female director to ever direct a movie that grossed more than $100 million at the box office with this movie.


June 03, 1989 –
The Fine Young Cannibals second studio album, The Raw & The Cooked, started a seven-week run at No.1 on the Billboard charts on this date.



Fine Young Cannibals rose from the ashes of the UK band The Beat. Sometimes called The English Beat to distinguish them from the Paul Collins' band, The Beat, had a number of UK Singles hits including a cover of Smokey Robinson's Tears Of A Clown, Mirror in the Bathroom, and Too Nice To Talk To. When the band broke up in 1983, guitarists David Steele and Andy Cox went on to form FYC with a new vocalist, Roland Gift, whom they carefully chose after eight months of listening to cassettes.


Another episode of ACME's Little Known Animal Facts


Today In History:
June 3, 1791 -
The French Assembly passes a resolution bringing decapitation to the common criminal: "Every person condemned to the death penalty shall have his head severed."



So it wasn't just for the rich anymore.

(I'm still hoping that we go back to the old 1% rule. Beheading only for those who can well afford them. And if asked, I could quickly come up with a list.)


June 3, 1888 -
Casey at the Bat, subtitled A Ballad of the Republic Sung in the Year 1888, by Ernest Thayer, was published in the San Francisco Examiner on this date.



The things you have to do to get kids to read poetry now-a-days.


June 3, 1906 -
Josephine Baker, dancer, singer, bisexual Parisian nightclub owner and Resistance fighter, was born on this date.



During World War II, Baker became active in undercover work for the French Resistance movement. Josephine Baker died in France in 1975 and was buried in Paris. She was the first American born woman to be buried with full French Military Honors.


June 3, 1937 -
Edward Albert Christian George Andrew Patrick David Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (who was the Duke of Windsor and had previously been King Edward VIII,) married 'the woman he loved', Bessie Wallis Warfield Spencer Simpson (who became the Duchess of Windsor and was previously known as maîtresse-en-titre of King Edward VIII,) on this date, at the Château de Candé, in Monts, France, after her second divorce became final.



Later that year, the couple toured Nazi Germany, not the greatest optics for the former King of England. During the Second World War, Edward was at first stationed with the British Military Mission to France, but after private accusations that he was a Nazi sympathiser, he was appointed Governor of the Bahamas. After the war, Edward spent the rest of his louche life in traveling the world; their official residence was in France. He and Wallis remained married until his death in 1972.

Such is romance upon the royals


June 3, 1943 -
Three days after a sailor had been badly injured in a brawl with a group of Hispanics, a mob of 60 servicemen leaves the Los Angeles Naval Reserve Armory bludgeoned anybody wearing a zoot suit.



The first two victims were a couple of boys, aged 12 and 13, who were just sitting in the Carmen Theater watching a movie. Thus began the famous week-long Zoot Suit Riot.


June 3, 1948 -
Edward Brown Jr., a former navy pilot, opened the first Fly-In Drive-In Theater, in Farmingdale, NJ, on this date. There was room for 500 cars and 25 airplanes.

The planes landed at an airfield next to the Drive-In, then they would taxi to the last row which was set up for planes.

When the movies were over Mr. Brown provided a jeep to tow the planes back to the airfield.


June 3, 1955 -
Barbara Graham, a convicted murderer, was executed in the gas chamber along with two accomplices on this date.



Susan Hayward won an Academy Award for playing Graham in the movie I Want to Live!


June 3, 1965 -
The first American astronaut to make a spacewalk was Major Edward White II, when he spent 20 minutes outside the Gemini 4 capsule during Earth orbit at an altitude of 120 miles. A tether and 25 foot airline were wrapped in gold tape to form a single,thick cord. He used a hand-held 7.5 pound oxygen jet propulsion gun to maneuver. The launch had taken place a few hours earlier on the same day.



During the remainder of the flight, pilot White and his crewmate commander James McDivitt completed 12 scientific and medical experiments. The total time in orbit was almost 98 hours, making 62 orbits. Soviet cosmonaut Aleksei A. Leonov, had made the first ever spacewalk for 10 minutes about three months earlier.


June 3, 1967 -
Billie Joe McAllister jumps off the Tallahatchee Bridge on this date (It was the third of June, another sleepy, dusty delta day,) according to the Bobbie Gentry song Ode To Billie Joe.



Gentry was familiar with the Tallahatchie Bridge since she was born and raised in Mississippi , where she grew up in a home without electricity. She learned to sing in church and her family got her a piano to nurture her musical talents. At age 13, she moved with her mother to Palm Springs, California, and in the ensuing years performed locally, taking the stage name Bobbie Gentry (her birth name: Roberta Lee Streeter - she chose the name after seeing the 1952 film, Ruby Gentry, starring Jennifer Jones and Charlton Heston).


June 3, 1968 -
Valerie Solanas, author of the SCUM Manifesto, arrived at the art studio of Andy Warhol on this date and shot him three times in the torso. Warhol barely survived the attempt on his life. Solanas was later jailed and institutionalized.



Doctors finish the job Solanas attempted several years later in a NY hospital when they botch a gall bladder operation in 1987. Solanas died a year after that in a skid row hotel in San Francisco in 1988, purportedly still working on a sequel to her previous book.


June 3, 1989 -
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini died after 11 days in a hospital, recovering from surgery to stop internal hemorrhaging, on this date.



Khomeini became ill when he realized that through a very bad translation, 73 virgins were not waiting for him but 73 raisins.


June 3, 1992 -
Arkansas governor Bill Clinton, campaigning for US president, makes an appearance on The Arsenio Hall Show, where he plays the Elvis Presley hit Heartbreak Hotel on the saxophone, on this date.



This performance ultimately solidified Clinton’s popularity with minority and young voters. It’s a moment in time that exemplifies the virtue of knowing your audience. Clinton knew his audience was young and urban, so he decided to give a performance he knew would resonate with them.


June 3, 2015 -
Godzilla, 61, nuclear accident survivor, Pacific Islander, Tokyo Bay illegal immigrant has officially been given Japanese citizenship and has been named ambassador at large of the busy Shinjuku ward of Tokyo.



It's always heartwarming to see how other countries deal with their immigrant situations.



And so it goes.

Hey, we celebrate a whole bunch of things

If you are anywhere in North America today, go outside when it is noon, face south, and yell "fudge!" You will be doing your part to make sure Cobras do not advance and take over North America.

Any Cobras that have already made it to North America will turn around and go home.

So now you know.


June 2, 1951 -
The Merrie Melodies short, Room and Bird, directed by Friz Freleng, starring Sylvester and Tweety Bird, debuted on this date.



Tweety actually sings like a bird, and Sylvester actually meows like a cat while communicating with their respective owners.


June 2, 1956 -
The Merrie Melodies short, The Unexpected Pest, directed by Bob McKimson, starring Sylvester, debuted on this date.



The names Marsha and John are a reference to the 1951 Stan Freberg song John and Marsha.


June 2, 1957 -
Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev was interviewed on US television for the very first time when CBS's Face the Nation aired on this date.



With Cold War tensions running high, some government officials accused CBS of putting out Communist propaganda. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, love god of Carol Burnett, refused to watch the interview.


June 2, 1972 -
A nearly-forgotten film based of the writing of James Thurber, The War Between Men and Women, directed by Melville Shavelson, and starring Jack Lemmon, Barbara Harris, Jason Robards, and Lisa Gerritsen, opened on this date.



Lisa Gerritsen played the same character (different name) in the 1969 TV series My World and Welcome to It.


June 2, 1973 -
Paul McCartney and Wings' song My Love, from the album Red Rose Freeway, hit No. 1 on the US singles chart on this date.



This is one of three songs of the same title to top the American singles chart. Petula Clark's My Love, was # 1 in 1966 whilst Justin Timberlake's song of the same title reached the peak position in 2006.


June 2, 1981 -
Barbara Walters famously asks Katharine Hepburn “If you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be?”, on this date.



After the interview, Walters' "tree" question was remembered, but the context in which it was asked was not. The so-called "If you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be?" question quickly became the equivalent of a television urban legend, often spoofed or (wrongly) cited as one of Walters' most outlandish interview questions. Over the years, even interview subjects ranging from Johnny Carson and Glenn Beck to Sandra Bullock brought up the infamous "tree" question during sit-downs with Walters.


June 2, 1983 -
The 12-inch remix of The Safety Dance by Men Without Hats goes to #1 on the Billboard Dance chart. MTV begins playing the huzzah-worthy video, and the song soon rose up the Hot 100.



Though music fans have often interpreted the song as a metaphor for nuclear war or a call for safe sex, Men Without Hats guitarist Stefan Doroschuk said in an online interview that The Safety Dance is about nonconformism and everyone's ability to leave their friends behind and strike out on their own.


June 2, 1984 -
Wham! had their first UK No.1 with Wake Me Up Before You Go Go, on this date.



Written and produced by George Michael, one half of the duo. Inspiration for the song was a scribbled note left by his Wham! partner Andrew Ridgeley for Andrew's parents, originally intended to read "wake me up before you go" but with "up" accidentally written twice, so Ridgeley wrote "go" twice on purpose.


June 2, 1987 -
The Paramount Picture Brian De Palma film, The Untouchables starring Kevin Costner, Sean Connery and Robert DeNiro premiered in NYC on this date.



An envelope is dropped on the desk of Eliot Ness in one scene. It is assumed to be a bribe, but the amount inside is never revealed. In real life, Al Capone promised Eliot Ness that two $1,000 bills would be on his desk every Monday morning if he turned a blind eye to his bootlegging activities (an enormous amount of money then; more than $30,000 today). Ness refused the bribe, and in later years struggled with money. He died almost broke at the age of fifty-four.


June 2, 1989 -
Peter Weir's take on the classic film Goodbye Mr. Chips, Dead Poets Society, written by Tom Schulman, and starring Robin Williams, Robert Sean Leonard, and Ethan Hawke opened in limited release on this date.



Peter Weir chose to shoot the film in chronological order to better capture the development of the relationships between the boys and their growing respect for Mr. Keating.


Today's moment of Zen


Today in History:
June 2, 1740 -
The Marquis de Sade was born on this date and his sexual proclivities made his name a noun.



His sexual proclivities themselves have been preserved in a mason jar at the Louvre.


June 2, 1793 -
Jean Paul Marat recites names of 29 people to the French Assembly, virtually all of whom will be guillotined. The Rain of Terror officially began in France.

This was one of the worst meteorological events in French history and cost hundreds of thousands of lives. (I will not stop discussing this event.)


June 2, 1886 -
President (Steven) Grover Cleveland, 49 and weighing over 300 lbs. (think William Barr with a walrus mustache) married Frances Folsom (his legal ward) in a White House ceremony on this date. Ms.Folsom, was the 22-year-old daughter of Cleveland's late law partner and friend, Oscar Folsom.



The intimate wedding ceremony took place in the White House Blue Room with fewer than 40 people present (those who could get over the entire ick factor.) To date, Cleveland is the only president to marry in the Executive Mansion while in office.



Here's a great bar bet: One of Cleveland's first political post was when he was elected Sheriff of Erie County in New York State in 1870. While in office, he presided over the hanging of two convicted murderers. So when he was elected President in 1884 (and in 1892), he was the only President to have personally executed anyone.


June 2, 1896 -
The first radio patent was issued to Guglielmo Marconi in England for his wireless telegraphy apparatus, described as “Improvements in Transmitting Electrical Impulses and Signals, and in Apparatus Therefor.” (UK No. 12,039)









I wonder what will become of that new fangled thing?


June 2, 1897 -
Mark Twain, at age 61, was quoted by the New York Journal on this date, as saying "the report of my death was an exaggeration."

He was responding to the rumors that he had died.

That always puts a crimp in your day.


June 2, 1910 -
Charles Stewart Rolls, one of the founders of Rolls-Royce, became the first man to fly an airplane nonstop across the English Channel both ways, on this date.

He became Britain's first aircraft fatality the following month when his biplane broke up in midair; he did not immediate return to his seat when the fasten your seat light was illuminated.


June 2, 1924 -
President Calvin Coolidge signed the Indian Citizenship Act (also known as the Snyder Act, after the bill's sponsor, Representative Homer P. Snyder, of New York,) granting full citizenship to all indigenous people born in the U.S. on this date.

Even Native Americans who were granted citizenship rights under the 1924 Act may not have had full citizenship and suffrage rights until 1948. Some states barred Native Americans from voting until 1957.


June 2, 1941 -
Baseball great, Lou Gehrig, died at 37 at his home in the Bronx on this date.



You would have thought someone might have mentioned to him that he had Lou Gehrig's disease earlier in his career.


June 2, 1953 -
Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor-Mountbatten officially became the head of her family's business and had her coronation on this date.



The entire ceremony was, save for the anointing and communion, televised throughout the Commonwealth, and was watched by an estimated 20 million people, with 12 million more listening on the radio.




The Queen's reign was longer than those of her four immediate predecessors combined (Edward VII, George V, Edward VIII and George VI). She was the longest reigning British or English monarch, and the second-longest-serving monarch of a sovereign state, having reigned for 70 years, 214 days (after King Louis XIV of France, who reigned for 72 years, 110 days) and the oldest reigning British monarch.

Here were the Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom who served QEII

Sir Winston Churchill *    1952 – 1955
Sir Anthony Eden              1955 – 1957
Harold Macmillan             1957 – 1963
Sir Alec Douglas-Home     1963 – 1964
Harold Wilson                    1964 – 1970
Edward Heath                    1970 – 1974
Harold Wilson                    1974 – 1976
James Callaghan                1976 – 1979
Margaret Thatcher            1979 – 1990
John Major                         1990 – 1997
Tony Blair **                      1997 - 2007
Gordon Brown                    2007 - 2010
David Cameron ***           2010 - 2016
Theresa May                       2016 - 2019
Boris Johnson                     2019 - 2022
Elizabeth Truss               September 6, 2022 - October 6, 2022

* Incredibly Churchill had the distinction of being the only MP to be elected under both Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth II.
** Tony Blair was the first Prime Minister to have been born during the Queen's reign. He was born in early May, 1953 - a month before the Coronation.
*** David Cameron was born in 1966; Prince Andrew, the Queen's third child was already 6 years old at the time.

Charles became the head of the firm with the passing of his mother, making him one of the oldest people to get their first job at his age, in history. Let's have a good thought for Charles and Kate, for that matter, today.


June 2, 1966 -
NASA had it's first successful moon landing with the Space Surveyor 1's soft landing, on this date.



The Soviet Union was the first when the Russian probe Luna 9 had a successful soft landing on the moon on February 3rd earlier in 1966 .



And so it goes.

A love song written by nature

June is the sixth month of the year and consists of thirty days. The ancient Romans gave it 29 days until 46 BC, when Julius Caesar added the thirtieth for reasons known only to himself. (Caesar's hobbies seem to have been conquering the known world, sleeping with some very rich North African teenager, and making calendars.)

The last day of the month is therefore referred to as its "Caesarean section" by calendar insiders.

(Calendar insiders need to get out more often.)



The month is believed to derive its name from either the Roman goddess Juno, patron goddess of marriage, or the Latin word iuniores ("the younger ones").



June marks the transition from spring to summer in the Northern Hemisphere, and from fall to winter in the Southern Hemisphere. (It is not a transitional month in other hemispheres.)



June has usually been the most popular month for weddings, but it's commonly overlooked that it's also one of the top twelve months for bathtub drownings and spontaneous combustion.



June is traditionally considered the poet's month because, with the warming of the earth and the lengthening light of fragrant evenings, thoughts inevitably turn to romance as hearts and passions swell. Also, June rhymes with a lot of words. For example: afternoon, aswoon, autoimmune, baboon, balloon, bassoon, bestrewn, boon, buffoon, Cameroon, cocoon, contrabassoon, croon, doubloon, dragoon, dune, entomb, excommune, festoon, floroon, granfalloon, harpoon, honeymoon, immune, inopportune, impugn, jejune, kaboom, lampoon, loon, macaroon, maroon, midafternoon, monsoon, moon, noon, pantaloons, picayune, platoon, poltroon, pontoon, prune, raccoon, rune, saloon, Schmigadoon, spittoon, spermatozoon, strewn, swoon, tune, tycoon, typhoon, ultramaroon, and vinegarroon.

Among the things we celebrate this month are::

National Accordion Awareness Month
Aquarium Month
Dairy Alternatives Month
National DJ Month
National Iced Tea Month
Fireworks Safety Months
National Pest Control Month
National Seafood Month


June 1, 1957 -
Another great drive in movie, The Giant Claw, directed by Fred F. Sears, and starring Jeff Morrow, Mara Corday, Robert Shayne, Morris Ankrum, and Dabbs Greer was released on this date.



In an interview, Jeff Morrow said that no one in the cast saw the title monster until they went to the film's premiere in Morrow's home town. Producer Sam Katzman had contracted with a low-budget model-maker in Mexico City to construct the "Giant Claw," and no one in the cast or crew had any idea it would come out looking as bizarre as it did. Morrow said the audience roared with laughter every time the monster made an appearance. He wound up slinking out of the theater in embarrassment before the film was over so no one who knew him would recognize him.


June 1, 1966 -
Dick Van Dyke tripped over the ottoman for the last time when CBS aired the last episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Last Chapter on this date.



In the show, Rob writes his autobiography and shows it to everyone. At the end of the show Alan decides to buy the rights to the manuscript and turn it into a TV series with him as the star after he finishes the variety series - which is what Carl Reiner did when he starred in the first unaired pilot for this series.


June 1, 1968 -
The British television series The Prisoner, starring Patrick McGoohan, had its American premiere on CBS-TV, as a summer replacement for a Jackie Gleason series, on this date.



At the end of the run of Secret Agent, there was a party, and some members of Parliament attended. Someone said to McGoohan, "So, what does a secret agent do when he retires?" meaning McGoohan. McGoohan took it literally and asked the question to some Parliament members. "Oh, we take care of them. We give them a house, a car, some pocket money, and that way they don't defect." This inspired McGoohan to create the show.


June 1, 1968 -
The Simon & Garfunkel release Mrs. Robinson hit No. 1 on the Billboard #100 list on this date.





Paul Simon began writing this as Mrs. Roosevelt, and had just the line, Here's to you, Mrs. Roosevelt when he changed it to Mrs. Robinson for The Graduate. Simon did not originally write a full-length version of this song, only the verses that are heard in the movie. After the movie became a hit, he finished the lyrics and recorded the full version that is known today.


June 1, 1980 -
Cable News Network (CNN) made its debut as the first all-news station.



How sad, Darth Vader had to do voice over work to rebuild the death star


June 1, 1984 -
The third feature film of the Star Trek franchise, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, starring the usually cast of characters on this date.



When negotiating Kirstie Alley's contract for Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Paramount Studios did not offer or include any options or clauses regarding any possible sequels. According to director Leonard Nimoy, this left Alley open to negotiate a new contract for this film, resulting in Alley's excessive salary demands, which led to her being dropped and replaced by Robin Curtis.


June 1, 1984 -
The severly altered and shorten masterpiece by Sergio Leone, Once Upon a Time in America, starring Robert De Niro, James Woods, Elizabeth McGovern, Joe Pesci, Burt Young, Tuesday Weld, and Treat Williams, opened in the US on this date.



A few days before the film's premiere in 1984, Treat Williams found out the two-hour version, not the three hour and forty-nine minute version, would be shown in theaters. He was heard to have said that no one would understand the movie in the shortened version. Indeed, the film did not do well at theaters, and was shut out of the Oscars, and received no nominations. When the video cassette and DVD versions were released in the original three hour and forty-nine minute version, the film ultimately found commercial and critical success.


June 1, 1985 -
David Lee Roth's cover of two Louis Prima songs - Just A Gigolo / I Ain't Got Nobody peaks at No. 12 on the Billboard Charts on this date.



Roth's love of quirky songs from a bygone era stems from his childhood, when he would listen to the underground radio station KPPC out of Pasadena, California. In their "anything goes" format, they played lots of fun, adventurous songs by the likes of Cab Calloway and Louis Prima.


June 1, 2001 -
Baz Luhrmann's jukebox musical fantasy, Moulin Rouge!, starring Nicole Kidman, Ewan McGregor, John Leguizamo, Jim Broadbent, and Richard Roxburgh, opens nationwide in theaters, on this date.



Various tricks were used to make John Leguizamo's (Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec-Monfa) legs appear shorter. Some shots are of his stand-in who was of the correct height, while in others he walked on his knees in special leg braces and wearing blue socks so that his lower legs could be digitally removed. Leguizamo did the entire climactic scene from a squatting position to give him greater mobility in his role. Consequently he had to endure several weeks of physical therapy afterwards.


June 1, 2009 –
Coco thought he succeeded Jay Leno when The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien premiered on NBC, on this date.



Many members of the Late Night cast and crew made the transition to The Tonight Show. The Max Weinberg 7, the house band from O'Brien's Late Night, served as the house band under the new name, Max Weinberg and The Tonight Show Band. Andy Richter returned to the show as announcer, and also began resuming his role as sidekick, shortly before the show's conclusion. The opening and closing theme song from Late Night was also carried over to Tonight, in a slightly altered form.


Word of the Day


Today in History:
June 1, 1494 -
The first written record of Scotch Whisky appeared in the Exchequer Rolls of Scotland on this date. (The Scots spell it whisky and the Irish spell it whiskey, with an extra 'e'. This difference in the spelling comes from the translations of the word from the Scottish and Irish Gaelic forms. Whiskey with the extra 'e' is also used when referring to American whiskies.)



It is generally agreed that Dalriadan Scots monks brought distillation with them when they came to Caledonia to convert the Picts to Christianity in the fourth and fifth centuries A.D. A Friar John Cor was the distiller of the first known batch.


June 1, 1571 -
The "Triple Tree" gallows was installed at Tyburn, England in time for the execution of John Storey, who was hanged, drawn, and quartered for committing treason.

The Triple Tree consists of an equilateral triangle nine feet long on each side, 18 feet off the ground. It can hang as many as 24 prisoners at once, and would remain in place for almost 200 years.


June 1, 1660 -
After having received a last-minute reprieve seven months earlier, Mary Dyer was hanged for heresy after returning to Boston on this date.



Dyer was guilty of the heinous crime of being a member of the Quakers, a subversive religious sect which had been banned by the Puritan colony under "pain of death" for their religious views of warm breakfast foods.


June 1, 1813 -
The U.S. Navy gained its motto as the mortally wounded commander of the U.S. frigate Chesapeake, Captain James Lawrence was heard to say, "Don't give up the ship!", during a losing battle with a British frigate Shannon; his ship was captured by the British frigate.



James Lawrence died of his wounds on June 4th, while the Chesapeake was being taken to Halifax, Nova Scotia, by her captors. His body was later repatriated to New York for burial.


June 1, 1926 -
Fame will go by and, so long, I've had you, fame. If it goes by, I've always known it was fickle. So at least it's something I experience, but that's not where I live.



Gladys Baker gave birth to Norma Jeane Mortenson in Los Angeles on this date.

Unfortunately, things did not quite work out for little Norma Jean.


June 1, 1938 -
Superman made his first appearance in D.C. Comics' Action Comics Series issue #1. The comic book sold for 10 cents. Jerry Siegel created Superman in 1933 after he dreamed about the Biblical story of Moses, whose parents abandoned him as a baby in order to save his life. This became the plot of the first Superman story.



It has been estimated that there are only 50 to 100 original copies of Action Comics #1 still in existence, and a smaller number of such exceptional quality as to be at the very high end of collectibility. One copy was stolen from actor Nicolas Cage, an avid comic book collector, in 2000. In March 2011, it was found in a storage locker in the San Fernando Valley and was verified by ComicConnect.com to be exactly the same copy that they sold to him previously. Cage had previously received an insurance payment for the item.


June 1, 1954 -
In the Peanuts comic strip, Linus' security blanket made its debut, on this date.

Although one of the things most associated with Linus is his obsessive need for the comfort provided by his security blanket, the intensity of that need clearly ebbs, as he is often (probably most frequently) shown without the beloved blanket.


June 1, 1967 -
It was 59 years ago today, The Beatles blew the collective world's mind away. Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was released in the UK on this date





The album was quite complex to produced and took 129 days and about 700 hours to complete. The Beatles first album, Please Please Me, was recorded in less than 10 hours.


June 1, 1968 -
When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.



Helen Keller - America's all-time favorite deaf and blind Socialist - died in Westport, Connecticut at the age of 87, on this date.


June 1, 1974 -
The procedure, the Heimlich maneuver (named after Dr. Henry Heimlich) was first mentioned in an article on this date in the journal, Emergency Medicine.



It's a maneuver that has largely replaced the old fashioned back-blows that people used to perform on choking victims.


It's Oscar the Grouch's birthday today.



Remember to leave something nice out in the trash today. (Please note: when Oscar first moved into his trash can he was orange. Then the gangrene set in.)


It's also my sister's birthday.

She doesn't usually make a big fuss about it but since she is the oldest relationship I have other than my parents, I will.

Happy Birthday.



And so it goes.