Now what?

Shockingly enough, polls were right and there was a Blue Tsunami. Have a moment to celebrate - then get back to the job at hand!

It's National Easy Bake Oven Day. Established in 2017, the day commemorates the anniversary of the release of the iconic toy in 1963.



The original 1963 version was not a cheap toy mid you. In fact, it cost a hefty $15.95. That might not sound like a lot, but adjusting for inflation, it amounts to $127. Despite the price, the Easy-Bake Oven sold half a million units in its first year on the market, thanks largely to it's was featured at the 1964 World's Fair. Bunkies, think of all the fun you can have with two 100 watt bulbs.


November 4, 1939 -
The Looney Tunes short, Pied Piper Porky, directed by Bob Clampett and starring Porky Pig, was released on this date.



The title refers to the Pied Piper of Hamelin, a legend about the abduction of many children from the town of Hamelin, Germany and used in stories written by the Brothers Grimm and Robert Browning.


November 4, 1939 -
The Merrie Melodies short, Fresh Fish, directed by Tex Avery was released on this date.



The opening pokes fun at Santa Anita, a popular Los Angeles adjacent racetrack and Hollywood hangout.


November 4, 1948 -
The controversial (for the time) film about life inside a mental institution, The Snake Pit, directed by Anatole Litvak, starring Olivia de Havilland, Mark Stevens, Leo Genn, Celeste Holm, Beulah Bondi, and Lee Patrick, premiered on this date.



Stephen King has said that watching this film on TV as a child deeply disturbed him and made him feel that he could suddenly go insane, directly contributing to his macabre interests and subsequently his writings.


November 4, 1960 -
The Daniel Mann’s adaptation of John O’Hara’s 1935 novel, Butterfield 8, starring Elizabeth Taylor, Laurence Harvey, and Eddie Fisher premiered on this date.



David Janssen was supposed to play the part of Steve Carpenter but Elizabeth Taylor demanded that the studio cast her new husband, Eddie Fisher, instead.


November 4, 1967 -
Motown released the Smokey Robinson and The Miracles hit, I Second That Emotion, on this date.



Smoky Robinson and Al Cleveland teamed up to write several more hits for the group, including Special Occasion, Yester Love, and Baby, Baby Don't Cry.


November 4, 1970 -
David Bowie, third studio album, The Man Who Sold the World, was released on this date in the US.



This album is one of Bowie's least known, but over the years many fans have come to appreciate it and a lot of bands have covered songs from it, including Lulu, Midge Ure, Nirvana, John (Cougar) Mellencamp, and Simple Minds, among others


November 4, 1972 -
Johnny Nash single I Can See Clearly Now hit #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts,on this date, becoming the first reggae tune to top the chart.



Nash wrote this song himself. He recorded it in London with members of The Average White Band, who in 1974 had a hit of their own with Pick Up The Pieces.


November 4, 1978 -
Bunkies, let the warm feelings wash over you, even though the skinny white boy is singing, - place one hand on your monitor and the other hand upon the afflicted area. He is channeling the healing powers of Rev. Al Green. Feel his power emanate and pulsate through your loins.



The Talking Heads released their version of the Al Green classic Take Me To The River, on this date. (Someone fetch me a cold compress - I need a moment to compose myself.)


November 4, 1981 –
The Fall Guy starring Lee Majors, Douglas Barr, and Heather Thomas, premiered on ABC, on this date.



Since Lee Majors started his acting career by hanging out with stuntmen, and occasionally working as one, he made sure real stuntmen got plenty of work on the show.


November 4, 1983 -
Paul Simon, sixth solo album, Hearts and Bones, was released on this date.



For the Hearts And Bones album, Paul Simon took a different approach to his songwriting. He explained in a 1990 interview with SongTalk magazine: "The language starts to get more interesting in Hearts and Bones. The imagery started to get a little interesting. What I was trying to learn to do was to be able to write vernacular speech and then intersperse it with enriched language. And then go back to vernacular. So the thing would go along smoothly and then some image would come out that was interesting and then it would go back to this very smooth, conversational thing. By the time I got to Graceland, I was trying to let that kind of enriched language flow naturally, so that you wouldn't really notice it as much. I think in Hearts and Bones you could feel it, that it was coming."


November 4, 2005 -
Walt Disney Pictures released Chicken Little, voiced by Zach Braff, Garry Marshall, Don Knotts, Patrick Stewart, Amy Sedaris, Joan Cusack, Wallace Shawn, Harry Shearer, Fred Willard, Catherine O'Hara, and Adam West, on this date. It was the second in-house Disney film completely created with computer animation, the first being Dinosaurs in 2000.



During the opening sequence, when the water tower ball crushes three cars, their horns sound off the M-O-U-S-E portion of The Mickey Mouse Club theme.


November 4, 2016 -
Netflix premiered the incredibly successful series about a young woman forced to take over a multinational business after the unexpected death of her beloved father, The Crown, starring, Claire Foy, Matt Smith, Vanessa Kirby, Victoria Hamilton, Jared Harris, John Lithgow and Eileen Atkins, on this date.



It is explained that the woman dressed as a nun, Princess Alice of Battenberg, is the mother of the Duke of Edinburgh. What is not explained is why she dressed that way: during the early 1930s, after going into exile and poverty with her family, she converted to Greek Orthodoxy, suffered a breakdown, was diagnosed with schizophrenia, and was institutionalized in a sanatorium. After her release she was separated or estranged from most of her family for many years. During World War II she hid a Jewish family from the Nazis (and was eventually posthumously named one of the 'Righteous Among the Nations' for her actions), and after the war she founded and joined an order of Greek Orthodox nuns, the Christian Sisterhood of Martha and Mary.


Another episode of ACME's Little Known Animal Facts.


Today in History:
November 4, 1847 –
Scottish physician, James Young Simpson, one of Queen Victoria's private physicians, discovers the anaesthetic properties of chloroform.



Chloroform is a colorless toxic chemical substance, which with an acrid, sickly sweet smell and taste, sends people off to sleep as they inhale. During an experiment with friends on this date, a Miss Petrie, Simpson's niece, tried chloroform. She fell asleep soon after inhaling it while singing the words, "I am an angel!"


November 4, 1869 -
The first issue of the scientific journal Nature was published on this date. The debut issue featured an article describing some recent work by Charles Darwin—and Darwin himself wrote in two subsequent issues.

The multidisciplinary British publication has also published important work on living primates, including that of Jane Goodall on chimpanzee tool use. The world’s most cited scientific journal, it is one of the few remaining academic sources that publishes original research across a wide range of scientific fields.


November 4, 1899 -
Sigmund Freud's book, Interpretation Of Dreams, in which he argued that understanding dreams can give an insight into our personality, was published on this date.



It was slow to take off, the first edition selling only 351 copies in its first six years. However, in time it became the book that gave Freud worldwide recognition.


November 4, 1916 -
America's premier journalist and favorite 'uncle' Walter Cronkite was born on this date.



The term ‘anchor’, a central and authoritative news presenter, was coined to describe his coverage of the 1952 presidential election. His spontaneous emotional reaction to the news of President Kennedy's death cemented his relationship with the US public. And his coverage of the Vietnam War was one of the leading reasons for President Johnson's decision not to seek re-election.


November 4, 1922 -
It was on this day that a British man named Howard Carter made one of the greatest archeological discoveries of all time by discovering the tomb of King Tutankhamen (Boris Karloff).



Three months later, Carter opened the sealed doorway and found they led to the burial chamber of the ancient Egyptian Boy King Tutankhamun.



Tut has been making his tour and putting a curse on those damn limeys who disturbed his eternal rest for nearly a century.


November 4, 1928 -
Arnold Rothstein, mobster and the man who fixed the 1919 World Series, was having a bit of bad luck. Rothstein had just finished playing a marathon three day game of poker with some 'business associates'.

Realizing that his losses totaled a staggering $320,000.00, Rothstein quit the game and refused to pay his debt. The Brain, as he was known by his associated suspected the game might not be on the up and up. His associates took umbrage at the accusation and 'arranged' to have Rothstein have an allergic reaction to some bullets at the Park Central Hotel in NYC on this date.

The gangster, a man of honor, refused to identify his killers on his deathbed. Had he only thought things might not be on the up and up playing cards with men named George "Hump" McManus and Titanic Thompson, things may have gone differently for him.


November 4, 1952 -
The US established the National Security Agency (NSA) on this date.



The NSA (is supposed to) serve as an intelligence agency of the US, gathering and analyzing foreign intelligence documentation and other forms of communication, usually involving encrypted information that requires decoding. (Just lift the receiver up off the phone and whisper, 'Happy Birthday', they'll hear you.)


November 4, 1960 -
After previously being a secretary, Jane Goodall was hired to study primates at Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania. She observed on this date, two chimps pick up small twigs, strip off the leaves, and use them as tools to fish for termites in the ground for a snack.



This was the first time that an animal was observed to modify an object to create a tool to use for a specific purpose.


November 4, 1963 -
At a Beatles command performance (present: Queen Elizabeth,the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret), John Lennon utters the remark: "Will the people in the cheaper seats clap their hands? And the rest of you, if you'll just rattle your jewelry."



If you look very closely behind the Queen Mother, I believe Princess Margaret flipped John off.


November 4, 1979 -
The US Embassy in Tehran was stormed by "students", holding 52 hostages for 444 days.



The incident propels Ted Koppel and his magnificent hair onto the national scene with a long series of repetitive Nightline: America Held Hostage specials.


November 4, 1995 -
Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, 73 years old, was killed by a right-wing, 27 year old Israeli law student, Yigal Amir, at a Tel Aviv peace rally.



Shimon Peres assumed the post of acting Prime Minister.


November 4, 2008 -



Senator Barack Obama of Illinois was elected the 44th president of the United States, the first African American to hold that position, on this date.

And so it goes

Thank God those damn ads are done with

It's not the voting that's democracy, it's the counting... -Tom Stoppard

Don't forget - if you're in NYC, there are 5 ballot measures you should vote on - look for them on your ballot.



Just Vote - you have no excuse today. Remember that voting is one of the only civic responsibilities you have as a citizen.


In case Election Day isn't enough, Happy National Sandwich Day. It's celebrated on the birthday of John Montagu, Fourth Earl of Sandwich, creator of the sandwich.



As the story goes, he was playing cards and did not want to leave the gaming table to eat. He asked for a serving of roast beef to be placed between two slices of bread so he could eat with his hands. Thus, the Sandwich was born.



To celebrate, begin gambling heavily, don't get up from the table for several hours and call for your manservant to bring you a slab of beef and two pieces of bread (and a piss pot.)


November 3, 1939 -
One of the crown jewels of the 'Golden Age' of Hollywood, Ninotchka opened in New York on this date.



Curiously enough, this was the very movie Arnold Schwarzenegger studied when he was trying to find his character for Red Heat. The exercise - emulate Greta Garbo - was recommended to him by his director Walter Hill.


November 3, 1944 -
The classic defining film-noir, The Woman in the Window, directed by Fritz Lang, and starring Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett, Raymond Massey, Edmund Breon, and Dan Duryea, went into general release on this date.



The movie is loosely based on the plot of Dostoyevsky's "Crime and Punishment," in which the criminal is invited by the investigator to aid in solving the crime. This plot twist appears both in Agatha Christie novels and TV dramas such as Columbo.


November 3, 1951 -
The Merrie Melodies short, Sleepy Time Possum, directed by Bob McKimson was released on this date.



Another hidden gem - these guys should have become recurring characters. .


November 3, 1953 -
The quiet yet stunning masterpiece by Yasujirô Ozu, Tokyo Story, starring Chishu Ryu and Chieko Higashiyama, premiered in Japan on this date.



Although made in the early 1950s alongside many other Japanese films now considered classics (e.g., Rashomon, Ugetsu, and Gate of Hell), this didn't receive U.S. release until 1964, by which time Yasujirô Ozu was already dead.


Gojira premiered in Japan on this date in 1954.




Akira Kurosawa, was a lifelong friend of director Honda and included this film among his all time favorite movies. When discussing the film with his daughter, Kurosawa said, "Imagine what you would do if a monster like Godzilla emerges! Normally one would forget and abandon his duty and simply flee! You won't? But the people in this movie properly and sincerely lead others, don't they. That is typical of Mr. Honda. I love it". In another interview, Kurosawa mentioned how Honda's films "remained popular because they were shot honestly and sincerely-they're naturally good". Suit actor Nakajima recalled that during filming, Kurosawa would occasionally show up and watch the film being shot.
(If you must see Raymond Burr, check him out here )


November 3, 1954 -
The film-noir drama, Human Desire, directed by Fritz Lang, and starring Glenn Ford, Gloria Grahame and Broderick Crawford, opened in the US on this date.



Fritz Lang had desperately wanted Peter Lorre to play Jeff Warren, but Lang had treated Lorre so abusively during the making of M that the actor refused. Marlon Brando also rejected the role of Jeff Warren, saying "I cannot believe that the man who gave us the über dark Mabuse, the pathetic child murderer in M and the futuristic look at society, Metropolis (1927), would stoop to hustling such crap."


November 3, 1955 -
Another highlight from the end of the Golden Age of Hollywood Musicals, Guys and Dolls, premiered in NYC on this date.



Frank Sinatra loathed the non-singing Marlon Brando for getting the starring role, while Sinatra got a lesser part. His nickname for the sometimes barely coherent Brando was "Mumbles."


November 3, 1956 –
CBS TV aired the film, The Wizard of Oz the first time, on this date.



Although a moderate success when released theatrically in 1939, it is now recognized as the most-watched film in television history.


November 3, 1962 –
The Crystals' single, He’s a Rebel, hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart on this date.



The Crystals did not sing on this. While at Liberty Records as the company's West Coast A&R head in 1962, producer Phil Spector heard Pitney's demo of the song. Knowing it would be a hit, he promptly resigned and his boss, Snuff Garrett, produced a version by Vikki Carr to be released as her first single. Spector assembled his musicians to do HIS version, but the Crystals were 3000 miles away in New York City; so he recruited The Blossoms - Darlene Love, Fanita James, and Gracia Nitzsche - to sing He's a Rebel.


November 3, 1967 -
Captain Kirk and the crew has a second run in with the con man, Harry Mudd and his army of androids when the Star Trek episode I, Mudd premiered on CBS-TV on this date.



NBC considered making a Harry Mudd spin-off show after the success of I, Mudd. They assigned Gene Roddenberry to develop the idea, but being busy with Star Trek and other projects, he didn't have time for it, and the series was never conceived.


November 3, 1976 -
MGM's horror classic, based on Stephen King’s best-selling first novel, Carrie, directed by Brian De Palma and starring Sissy Spacek, premiered on this date.



When Sissy Spacek was preparing for her character, she isolated herself from the rest of the ensemble, decorated her dressing room with heavy religious iconography and studied Gustave Doré's illustrated Bible. She studied "the body language of people being stoned for their sins," starting or ending every scene in one of those positions.


November 3, 1978 -
Diff'rent Strokes premiered on NBC-TV on this date.



Gary Coleman's parents actually took all of his money that he made from this show. By the time he sued his parents, they had no money left. Coleman ended up working as a security guard for the final years of his life.


November 3, 1990 -
The American public apparently went insane and Vanilla Ice's single, Ice Ice Baby was the number one single on the U.S. music charts, on this date.



The song clearly samples the 1980 song Under Pressure by Queen and David Bowie, but Vanilla Ice never got permission to use it. No lawsuit was filed, but it is likely that Vanilla Ice agreed to pay Queen and Bowie a settlement. According to industry insider Hans Ebert, Brian May of Queen first heard this song in a disco in Germany. He asked the DJ what it was, and learned that it was #1 in the US.


November 3, 1993 -
Fran traveled for the first time over the bridge from Flushing to the Sheffield's door when, The Nanny, premiered on CBS-TV on this date.



When the show was broadcast in the U.K., many viewers wrote in to chide Charles Shaughnessy over his "imitation" English accent, and suggested he practice with co-star Daniel Davis on how to do a proper English accent. The cast found this quite amusing, as Shaughnessy is a native Englishman, born in London while Davis is an American, born in Arkansas.


November 3, 1995 -
The Thanksgiving comedy-drama, Home for the Holidays, directed by Jody Foster and starring Holly Hunter, Robert Downey Jr., Anne Bancroft, Charles Durning, Dylan McDermott, Geraldine Chaplin, Steve Guttenberg, Cynthia Stevenson, Claire Danes, Austin Pendleton, and David Strathairn, opened in the US on this date.



Robert Downey Jr. publicly admitted to using heroin during the making of this film. Jodie Foster wrote him a letter praising his work, but warning him that he could not keep doing this on other films.


Today's moment of Zen


Today in History:
November 3, 1507 -
At the height of the Renaissance, a famous middle-aged Italian artist (who may or may not have weighed in the whole gravy vs. sauce debate - he was a gravy man) was commissioned by the husband of Lisa Gherardini to paint her on this date.



The work is known as the Mona Lisa (La Gioconda.) Little known fact: The painting cannot be bought or sold according to French heritage law.


November 3, 1906 -
Anticipating ABBA, SOS was adopted as warning signal by first conference on wireless telegraphy on this date.



Previously, people had to stand on the deck of their sinking ships and scream their heads off in hopes that someone would hear them.


November 3, 1957 -

Laika the dog became the first living creature in space on this date, when she involuntarily fulfilling a canine suicide mission aboard the Soviet Sputnik 2. Soviet engineers expected Laika to die from oxygen deprivation—a painless death within 15 seconds—after seven days in orbit.



However, some western researchers speculated, then later confirmed by declassified Soviet documents in 1993, that Laika was roasted when the satellite's heat shields were detached.

I wonder if the Explorer's Club served Hot Dogs in her honor that year.


November 3, 1964 -
In 1801, the Washington D.C. district was established as a US Congressional jurisdiction; this meant residents of Washington D.C. were unable to vote.



The passing of the 23rd Amendment to the US Constitution, in 1961, reversed this policy, allowing D.C. residents to vote. Residents of Washington D.C. were permitted to vote in a US Presidential election for the first time on this date.


November 3, 1988 –
Talk-show host Geraldo Rivera’s nose was broken as Roy Innis brawled with skinheads on his daytime show, Geraldo, on this date.



He did not press charges, claiming that he did not wish to be “tied up with the roaches” and also said that “if there ever was a case of deserved violence, this was it.”


November 3, 1993 -
Russian inventor Leon Theremin, famous for his invention of the theremin, one of the first electronic musical instruments, died on this date.



He first performed the theremin with the New York Philharmonic in 1928.



Thermin's instrument has shown up in the work of such diverse artist as Raymond Scott, Bernard Herrmann, The Beach Boys and Pink Floyd.

And so it goes

Hope you haven't overslept

So those of the dearly departed who didn't make the cut yesterday for All Saint's Day, take heart;

remember today is All Souls Day, aka the Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed (the second day of Día de los Muertos.)

In the late tenth or early eleventh century, Saint Odilo of Cluny decided that All Souls' Day would take place after All Saints' Day.



If you need to ask, according to the old ladies who are saying their decades of rosaries in the back of the church, today is dedicated to praying for the souls of the dead so they can leave purgatory and go to heaven with impeccibly clean souls.


November 2, 1920 -
KDKA in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania started broadcasting as the first commercially licensed radio station in the United States, on this date



After building a transmitter for the company, Westinghouse employee Frank Conrad listened as colleagues broadcast the US presidential election returns from a shack on the roof of the K Building of the Westinghouse Electric Company "East Pittsburgh Works" in Turtle Creek, Pennsylvania. It was reportedly heard as far away as Canada. By the way, Republican Warren G. Harding (size 13 shoe wearer) won the election that night, on his 55th birthday.


November 2, 1934 -
Ernst Lubitsch charming adaptation of the famous Viennese operetta The Merry Widow starring Maurice Chevalier and Jeanette MacDonald premiered on this date.



Maurice Chevalier avoided any confrontations with Jeanette MacDonald and Ernst Lubitsch throughout production. He did, however, blow up at his assistant, Robert Spencer. Spencer had relayed the director and co-star's invitation to Chevalier to help them plan the wrap party and provide gifts for the crew. The actor handed the assignment to Spencer, but when Spencer presented him with the bill for the gifts, which came to about $1,000, the notoriously stingy actor screamed at him. After thinking about it, and realizing that the cost of the gifts was not out of line with current Hollywood custom, Chevalier apologized.


November 2, 1935 -
The Looney Tunes short, Gold Diggers of '49, directed by Tex Avery and starring Porky Pigwas released on this date.



This is the first and only cartoon to have Porky talk in a deeper voice.


November 2, 1940 -
Another funny Looney Tunes short, The Sour Puss directed by Bob Clampett, and starring Porky Pig, premiered on this date.



The flying fish character may have been intended to be a fourth attempt at introducing a recurring "screwball" character in the Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies franchise (following on the success of Daffy Duck, Happy Rabbit (Bugs Bunny's predecessor) and Bugs Bunny), but the flying fish was not seen again after this cartoon, likely due to it not catching on with audiences.


November 2, 1942 -
One of Preston Sturges laugh out loud comedy, The Palm Beach Story, starring Claudette Colbert, Joel McCrea, Mary Astor and Rudy Vallée, opened on this date. (Sturges, himself, had to shove a handkerchief in his mouth to avoid ruining a take by laughing.)



With parts written to their specific talents, most of the actors required little direction. The result was a relaxed set where the cast felt comfortable trying whatever the script demanded. When Joel McCrea had to fall down a flight of stairs at the end of an argument, Preston Sturges even took the fall for him first, just to show him it was safe.


November 2, 1946 -
Walt Disney's 'politically incorrect' feature, the partially- animated film, Song of the South, was released on this date.



Widely regarded as a "pariah" feature of the Walt Disney Company, Song of the South has been primarily disowned by the company since the early 1990s out of fear for the controversy surrounding the film's alleged racist undertones. The classic music, however, can still often be heard throughout the Disney theme parks and other various outlets - unknown to most younger generations who have no association with it.


November 2, 1946 -
The Looney Tunes short, Mouse Menace, directed by Arthur Davis and starring Porky Pig, was released on this date.



This was the first Warner Bros. cartoon directed by Arthur Davis.


November 2, 1957 -
The often edited for S & P (I definitely should know) Bugs vs. Daffy Looney Tunes short, Show Biz Bugs, directed by Friz Freleng, premiered on this date.



The segment when Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck were dancing to Tea for Two was used for the opening scene, (as other Warner Brothers' popular animation stars walked across from right to left behind Bugs and Daffy, during their dance) of the television series Bugs Bunny and Friends on WNEW-TV (Channel 5, was retitled WNYW) in New York for much of the 1970s and into the early 1980s decades.


November 2, 1978 -
The Police release their debut album, Outlandos d'Amour, on this date. The working title, Police Brutality, was changed to make is sound more romantic. The title loosely translates as Outlaws of Love but the term Outlandos is actually a mix of the words for Outlaws and Commandos.



The Police started mading videos right away, starting with some tracks from their first album, Outlandos d'Amour, in 1978. Their earliest videos were mostly performance footage or shots of the band in exotic locations just larking about, but as they got more successful, their video budgets grew and they became more conceptual. When MTV went on the air in 1981, they played many of these videos because they had few to choose from.


November 2, 1989 -
BBC One aired the screaming funny conclusion to the Blackadder Goes Forth series, Goodbyeee starring Rowan Atkinson and Tony Robinson, written by Richard Curtis and Ben Elton, on this date



The decision to set Blackadder in the trenches of World War One did not come from Ben Elton, Richard Curtis or any of the cast or producers. The BBC received an unsolicited script for a new Blackadder series, set in France during WWI, from a young first-time writer. The scripts themselves were rejected, but Elton and Curtis did like the idea of a WWI setting and subsequently wrote Blackadder Goes Forth using this idea.


November 2, 1995 -
Chrissie Hynde of The Pretenders guest stars on the Friends episode The One with the Baby on the Bus, on this date.



She sings Angel of the Morning and learns Smelly Cat from Phoebe (Lisa Kudrow).


November 2, 2001 -
The Disney-Pixar computer-animated movie Monsters Inc., opened in general release on this date.



In the first scene, one of the toys on the boy's bedroom shelf is the toy plane that hung from the ceiling and caused Buzz to "fly." As Mike and Sulley go through the scare floor, the rolling clown from Toy Story can be seen in the background. Lastly, when Randall is practicing camouflaging into backgrounds of walls, one of the images given to him is the wallpaper Andy had in his room.


November 2, 2003 –
FOX TV premiered Arrested Development starring Jason Bateman, Portia de Rossi, Will Arnett, Michael Cera, Alia Shawkat, Tony Hale, David Cross, Jeffrey Tambor, Jessica Walter, and narrated by Ron Howard, on on this date. Despite acclaim from critics, Arrested Development received low ratings and the series was cancelled in 2006. It returned in 2013 for two seasons on Netflix.



Ron Howard's role as the narrator was accidental. He was merely filling in on the pilot, but his voice just "worked."


Word of the Day


Today in History:
November 2, 1913 –
The love god of my 'work wife', former circus performer Burt Lancaster was born on this date.



He was an infamous ladies man in Hollywood, which eventually irritated his wife, Norma, enough for her to leave him.


November 2, 1944 -
Thomas Midgley Jr., an American chemist who developed both leaded gasoline and chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), was notoriously known as "the one human responsible for more deaths than any other in history".



As if it was nature's idea to get revenge on him he was left disabled in his bed due to lead poisoning and polio at the age of 51.



Keeping his inventive juices flowing, he designed a complicated system of strings and pulleys on his bed so that he could lift himself up when needed. This invention was the cause of his death at the age of 55 when he was accidentally entangled in the ropes of his bed and died of strangulation.

Talk about double irony.


November 2, 1947 -
In California, industrialist, film producer/director, philanthropist, syphilitic bisexual germaphobe Howard Hughes flew the maiden (and only) flight of the Spruce Goose; the largest fixed-wing aircraft ever built.



The plane was crafted out of 200 tons of plywood. The war ended before the plane was deployed.


November 2, 1948 -
President Harry S.Truman somehow roused himself from his alcoholic stupor and was re-elected in an upset victory over the presumptive winner, Republican Thomas E. Dewey.



The Chicago Tribune had printed a banner headline 'DEWEY WINS!' prematurely. Truman defeated Dewey by 2.2 million popular votes and 114 electoral votes.


November 2, 1957 -
On this date in Levelland, Texas, at least 12 people, including two police officers, had separate encounters with either a large egg-shaped object in the roadway that made their car batteries die or they saw a red flash moving across the sky.



The US Air Force attempted to claim that a severe thunderstorm was responsible, but witnesses all claim there was no storm in the area at the time. The Levelland UFO Case still remains one of the most notable UFO cases in history.

Keep watching the skies!


November 2, 1959 -
Game show contestant Charles Van Doren admitted to a House subcommittee that he'd been given questions and answers prior to appearances on Twenty-One, the NBC game show.



Oops!


November 2, 1963 -
South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem and his brother were assassinated in a military coup. Coup leader Duong Van Minh explained that "They had to be killed - Pres. Diem was too much respected among simple, gullible people in the countryside."



A 3rd brother was later tricked into surrendering to US forces and was turned over to coup leaders and killed by firing squad. (President Johnson admitted the CIA's part in the coup.)

Once again, American diplomacy at work.


November 2, 1984 -
Velma Barfield became the first woman executed in the United States since 1962 for the murder of her mother, her boyfriend and two others with rat poison in their food.



That will learn her.


November 2, 1988 -
An Internet Worm was released by Cornell grad student Robert Morris on this date. His ingenious program was meant to explore the Internet harmlessly, but due to a bug, it crashed some 6,000 computers.



Morris parlayed the incident into a career, he is now an associate professor at MIT.

Bunkies, this is not the way to get ahead.


November 2, 2000 -
After the Soyuz spacecraft linked up to the International Space Station (ISS), William Shepherd, Sergei Krikalev, and Yuri Gidzenko boarded the station, turned on the lights and life support systems, and became the first crew to take up long term residence in space.



They would remain confined to two of the station’s three rooms until Space Shuttle Endeavor arrives in early December with giant solar panels to power the station.



And so it goes