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

Life seems to be passing more quickly

Did you remember to set all of the clocks back?

- the DVD player (I no longer have a VCR,) the microwave, the automatic coffee pot in the kitchen? Don't worry, we'll wait -



If you've already done so, you can watch this and amuse yourself to learn that screenwriters Harry Ruby and Bert Kalmar were standing on the set one day when an extra standing next to them said, "I don't know who wrote this stuff but they ought to be arrested...they should be in a different business." Kalmer, who was known as a rational and calm man, said to Ruby, "I'm going over to hit him. Who does he think he is? He's just an extra!" But before fisticuffs erupted, Kalmer and Ruby were informed that Chico Marx had paid the extra to rib the screenwriters, just for the hell of it.


Do you have friend running the NYC Marathon today?



Don't forget to remind them that the first guy who ran one, died at the finish line.


The name November comes from the Latin "novem" which is the Latin for the nine. In the early Roman calendar, it was the ninth month. According to the Gregorian calendar, November is the eleventh month of the year.

Go figure.

The Roman Senate elected to name the eleventh month for Tiberus Caesar and since Augustus time, it has had only 30 days. Originally, there were 30 days, then 29, then 31. This is what comes from too much of a good time - poor calendar making.



(In England it's the first day of the fox-hunting season. Oscar Wilde called fox-hunting ‘the unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable’. About 30,000 foxes die each year. Just in case this comes up in conversation.)

November's Birthstone is the Topaz or Citrine.

November's Flower is the Chrysanthemum.



November comes between the fall and winter months. The leaves are almost completely gone from the trees, and the rest have lost most of their color. The Anglo-Saxons referred to November as the 'wind month' and the 'blood month' - probably because this is the month they killed their animals for food.



Lots of activities come to a halt in November. The crops have been harvested and either put in storage, or sent to processing plants or mills. Farmers already know if their year has been successful or not. Football is the main sport of the month. The weather is usually beautiful for this kind of sport.

November is:
Adoption Awareness Month,
Alzheimer's Disease Month,
Apple Month,
Aviation History Month,
Change the Batteries In Your Vibrator Month,
Impotency Month,
Christmas Seals Month,
Denounce your local Rotarian Month,
National Fun with Fondue Month,
Epilepsy Month,
Hospice Month,
Native-American Heritage Month,
Peanut Butter Lovers Month,
Real Jewelry Month (and not Real Jewry Month)
and Movember.



Oh yeah, Thanksgiving occurs during November as well.


Today is also All Saints Day, the feast celebrated on November 1 in Western Christianity, honoring all the saints, known and unknown.

It's also the first day of celebration The Day of the Dead (Dia de los Muertos in Spanish), a holiday celebrated mainly in Mexico and by people of Mexican heritage (and others) living in the United States and Canada.



The holiday focuses on gatherings of family and friends to pray for and remember friends and relatives who have died. The celebration occurs on the 1st and 2nd of November, in connection with the Catholic holy days of All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day.

All Saints Day is a Holy Day of Obligation. So if you are being observant, put you ass in a pew.


November 1, 1938 -
The Alfred Hitchcock film, The Lady Vanishes, starring Margaret Lockwood and Michael Redgrave premiered in the US on this date.



In order to get a realistic effect, Alfred Hitchcock insisted that there should be no background music except at the beginning and the end. Between those two points, the only music heard is the music sung by the musician outside the hotel, the music tune of Miss Froy, the "Colonel Bogey March" music hummed by Gilbert (Michael Redgrave), the dance music conducted by Gilbert in his hotel room, and the dance music when Iris (Margaret Lockwood) meets Gilbert in the train.


November 1, 1947 -
The Merrie Melodies short, Slick Hare, directed by Friz Freleng and starring Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd, was released on this date.



Caricatures of Michael Maltese and Tedd Pierce appear at the Mocrumbo. Pierce is drinking a martini, a reference to his notorious drinking habit.


November 1, 1958 -
The Looney Tunes short, Pre-Hysterical Hare , directed by Bob McKimson and starring Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd, was released on this date.



This cartoon shows a Stone Age Bugs Bunny (Sabertooth Rabbit) and Elmer Fudd (Elmer Fuddstone). This premise of naming characters and events in Stone Age terms was used well over a year before the premiere of The Flintstones, which debuted in (b>1960.


November 1, 1962 -
The musical film (based on the Broadway musical), Gypsy, directed by Mervyn LeRoy, and starring Rosalind Russell, Natalie Wood, and Karl Malden, opened in the US on this date.



Before the decision was made to dub most of her vocals, Rosalind Russell attempted to do her own singing. The results are an extra feature on the soundtrack CD. After Ethel Merman died, a tape of the Russell recordings was found in a box in Merman's closet. Merman, furious that she had not been cast in the film, evidently kept a copy of the Russell vocals as a strange, somewhat vengeful consolation prize.


November 1, 1967 -
Warner Brothers released one of Paul Newman's signature films, Cool Hand Luke on this date.



While passing by the prison camp set, a San Joaquin County building inspector thought it was a recently constructed migrant workers' complex, and posted "condemned" notices on the buildings for not being up to code.


November 1, 1968 –
George Harrison releases Wonderwall Music, on this date, becoming the first Beatle to release a solo album.



It’s a soundtrack to the psychedelic movie Wonderwall. The songs which were mostly Harrison instrumentals, featured Eric Clapton, Ringo Starr and an unaccredited banjo contribution by Peter Tork of The Monkees.


November 1, 1969 –
Elvis Presley single Suspicious Minds went to No. #1 on the Billboard Charts on this date. It was his last #1 hit in his lifetime.



This was a big comeback song for Elvis, who hadn't had a US #1 hit since Good Luck Charm in 1962. He had been making a series of unexceptional movies, and his music had lost its luster. Suspicious Minds brought him back to #1 in November 1969, and he was off and running, launching a tour in 1970 (his first in nine years) and becoming a star attraction in Las Vegas.


November 1, 1974 -
The rock horror musical, Phantom of the Paradise, directed by Brian De Palma, and starring Paul Williams, William Finley, George Memmoli, Harold Oblong, Archie Hahn, Jeffrey Comanor, Gerrit Graham, and Jessica Harper, opened in the US on this date.



At several key points in the film - especially during the Swanage audition and "orgy" sequences - the singing and character voice work is provided by Betty Buckley. She originally auditioned for a role in the film and was not cast, but Brian De Palma called on her because of her skill with ADR and voice work.


November 1, 1978 –
The British animated film, Watership Down, directed by Martin Rosen, and featuring the voices of John Hurt, Richard Briers, Harry Andrews, Simon Cadell, Nigel Hawthorne, Roy Kinnear, and Zero Mostel (in his final film role,) opened in the US on this date.



The British Board of Film Classification had received complaints about this movie for over four decades after its release, due to the board's decision to classify it U (suitable for all). The BBFC admitted in 2012 that it had "received complaints about the suitability of Watership Down at U almost every year since its classification." On August 4, 2022, the film was re-rated PG after 44 years. It is still considered to be the most violent animated PG-rated movie ever made.


November 1, 1994 -
The first Nirvana album released following the death of Kurt Cobain, MTV Unplugged in New York was released on this date.



The following week, it debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 and sold 310,500 copies, which was the highest first-week sales of Nirvana's career.


Another album from the discount bin at The ACME Record Shoppe .


Today in History:
November 1, 1512 -
Michelangelo (Charlton Heston) finally stops milking the job and the Sistine Chapel ceiling was finally exhibited to public.



Thus ended the largest padding of a rehab bill since the building of the Taj Mahal.


This was a very big day for William Shakespeare.

On November 1, 1604, his tragedy Othello was first presented.



On November 1, 1611, his romantic comedy The Tempest was first presented.



Unless, Edward DeVere wrote these plays. Then it would have been a big day for him.


November 1, 1800 -
President John Adams became the first US leader to move into the Executive Mansion, which later was called the White House, on this date.



Construction began on the White House in 1792, and it took eight years to complete. And as it has been observed, it wasn't trade unionist who built it.


November 1, 1870 -
In the United States, the Weather Bureau (later renamed the National Weather Service) made its first official meteorological forecast -



darkness approaching as night falls with a gradual increase of daylight as dawn comes on in the morning.


November 1, 1896 -
A picture showing the unclad (bare) breasts of a (Zulu) woman appears in National Geographic magazine for the first time,

starting a trend of providing masturbation material to youth for decades.


November 1, 1918 -
The worst accident in the history of the New York subway system - the Malbone Street wreck of 1918, which killed at least 93 people, occurred on this date. Motormen of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers went on strike against the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company, the forerunner of the BMT. BRT officials decided to keep the trains running, using nonstriking workers to drive them.



An inexperienced strikebreaker drove a train too fast and the train derailed in tunnel underneath Malbone Street in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn, shearing off the sides and roofs of four of the five cars. Dozens of passengers died immediately, many of them decapitated or impaled by shards of wood and glass. Rescuers rushed to the station, to help the dazed and injured and to carry away the dead. The power failure in the tunnel posed a problem for rescuers that was partially solved when automobiles pulled up near the entrance to the station to illuminate the ghastly scene.


November 1, 1939 -
The first animal, a rabbit, was conceived by artificial insemination on this date.



History does not record why anyone felt that rabbits needed any help in the procreation department.


November 1, 1941 -
Photographer Ansel Adams took a picture of a moonrise in the half-light between sunset and dark that would become one of the most famous images in the history of photography, on this date.



While driving through the countryside, Adams pulled off to the side of Route 84 when he saw a church and cemetery near Hernandez, New Mexico. Desperate to capture the image in the fading light, he, his son and another passenger scrambled to set up the tripod and camera, knowing that only moments remained before the light was gone. He only managed to produce one exposure before the sunlight lifted from the gravesite’s crosses at 4:49 pm.


November 1, 1950 -
Two Puerto Rican nationalists, Oscar Collazo and Griselio Torresola tried to assassinate President Harry Truman while he was residing at the Blair House while the White House underwent renovations on this date. The two assailants were able to walk right up to the front door and open fire.



The President and his wife were upstairs and were not harmed. Torresola was killed by the US secret service during the unsuccessful attack, and Collazo was sentenced to life in prison after President Truman commuted his death sentence.


November 1, 1951 -

US Soldiers were exposed to an atomic explosion for the first time in training exercises, at Desert Rock, Nevada on this date.



Your tax dollars at work in 1951 - Participation was not voluntary and served both to train and indoctrinate.


November 1, 1952 -
The United States successfully detonated the first large hydrogen bomb, codenamed “Ivy Mike,” in the Eniwetok Atoll of the Marshall Islands, on this date. The bomb has a yield of ten megatons, a force a thousand times more powerful than the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima.



Eighty million tons of soil were kicked into the air by the blast. The “mushroom” cloud rose to 135,000 feet and would eventually spread to 1,000 miles in width. It was the first time fusion occurred on Earth.


November 1, 1955 -
Jack Gilbert Graham planted a time bomb aboard a United DC-6 airplane, killing all 44 people on board, above Longmont, Colorado, on this date. Graham planted the bomb in his mother's suitcase in an apparent move to claim life insurance money.



After arresting Graham federal agents learned that it was not in fact a federal crime to blow up an airplane. Colorado instead charged the man for the single murder of his mother. Graham was executed in the gas chamber Jan 11, 1957. Remember kids, the wages of sin is death.


November 1, 1975 -
Italian film director, screen writer, essayist, poet, critic and novelist, Pier Paolo Pasolini was violently murdered on this date.

The circumstances surrounding Pasolini's death remain a mystery. A young male prostitute was tried and convicted for the murder in 1976. But it was widely believed that Pasolini was murdered by the Mafia because of his investigation of their involvement in the prostitution business.



And so it goes