The season unofficially begins in the city

Rockefeller Center is getting ready to get into the Christmas spirit when the 76 feet tall, 50 feet wide, 12 tons, and approximately 75-year-old Norway Spruce will be cut down this morning. The tree has been donated by Rebecca Decker (in memory of her husband who passed away in 2020) from West Edmeston, New York.

The tree will make the over 243-mile journey by flatbed truck to Manhattan and arrive on Saturday, November 7 where it will be erected at Rockefeller Center. Crews will start decorating the tree and wrapping more than 50,000 multi-colored, energy-efficient LED lights. Then it will be topped with a Swarovski star with 3 million crystals and 70 glass spikes, shining with an intensity of 106,000 lumens. This year’s official lighting ceremony will take take place on Wednesday, December 2nd and will be broadcast nationally as part of NBC’s Christmas at Rockefeller Center; the host and performers have yet to be announced.

As always, we here at ACME warn you to avoid the area at all cost.


November 5, 1932 -
Hollywood's love of Oriental Exoticism reached it full flower when MGM released the film The Mask Of Fu Manchu, starring Boris Karloff and Lewis Stone premiered on this date.



In filming the scene where Fu Manchu injects his mind control drug into Terry Granville's neck, Boris Karloff actually pushed the syringe into a baked potato, which was lying on the table next to Charles Starrett's head, out of camera range. However, each time Karloff pressed the plunger down, the potato would explode. This happened on several takes, until Karloff and Starrett couldn't do the scene without laughing. Director Charles Brabin finally gave up and dismissed the two actors for the day, saying, "Never mind! We'll shoot it tomorrow morning!"


November 5, 1938 -
A very funny (but very un PC) B and W Looney Tunes Cartoon, Porky in Egypt, directed by Bob Clampett, premiered on this date.



The camel steals the cartoon. Unfortunately, the camel never followed up his star turn in this one.


November 5, 1938 -
The Merrie Melodies short, You're an Education, directed by Frannk Tashlin was released on this date.



This was the last cartoon directed by Frank Tashlin in the 1930s. He left the studio in 1938 to become a gag writer at Walt Disney Productions. Following the 1941 Disney strike, he moved to Screen Gems as a director and producer before returning to Leon Schlesinger Productions in 1942


November 5, 1943 -
Robert Siodmak first feature for Universal Studios, Son of Dracula, from a script by his brother Curt and starring Lon Chaney, Jr., premiered on this date.



While filming, Louise Allbritton and co-star Robert Paige were constantly playing jokes on their cast mates. One day, Pat Moriarity and Paige were filming a scene where they flip open her character's coffin. They were astonished upon opening the lid to find Allbritton inside, completely naked.


November 5, 1953 -
Jean Negulesco romantic comedy, How to Marry a Millionaire, starring Marilyn Monroe, Lauren Bacall, Betty Grable, William Powell, David Wayne, Rory Calhoun, and Cameron Mitchell premiered on this date. The film was 20th Century Fox's first film to be shot in the new CinemaScope wide-screen sound process, although it was the second CinemaScope film released by Fox after the biblical epic film The Robe.



How to Marry a Millionaire helped make an auspicious introduction for Fox's CinemaScope process to audiences and usher in a new era of widescreen entertainment. The film went on to become the fourth highest grossing Hollywood film of 1953.


November 5, 1956 -
The Nat King Cole Show debuted on NBC-TV on this date. The Cole program was the first of its kind hosted by an African-American.



In the 1956 season, the show had a 15-minute running time. It was expanded to a 30-minute segment in 1957. The show originally aired without a sponsor, but NBC agreed to pay for initial production costs; it was assumed that once the show actually aired and advertisers were able to see its sophistication, a national sponsor would emerge.Unfortunately, none did. Cole famously said of the doomed series, "Madison Avenue is afraid of the dark."


November 5, 1964 -
An unsung minor masterpiece, Seance on a Wet Afternoon, premiered in the US on this date.



In an early draft of the screenplay, Billy and Myra were both male, with Director Bryan Forbes planning to cast Alec Guinness and Tom Courtenay as the homosexual couple. Courtenay agreed to play the role but Guinness, however, turned it down. Forbes decided then to completely re-write the screenplay.


November 5, 1965 -
The classic French New Wave film Pierrot le Fou, directed by Jean-Luc Godard, starring Jean-Paul Belmondo and Anna Karina, premiered in France on this date.



Despite continual claims that Godard shot the majority of his films without scripts or preparation, actress Anna Karina has subsequently claimed that they were in fact very carefully planned out to the smallest of details, with an almost obsessive level of perfectionism.


November 5, 1966 -
The Monkees' Last Train To Clarksville topped the pop-singles charts on this date.



This was written by Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart, a songwriting team who came up with many songs for the Monkees. They also wrote songs for Chubby Checker and Jay and the Americans. Boyce and Hart wrote this as a protest to the Vietnam War. They had to keep this quiet in order to get it recorded, but it is about a guy who gets drafted and goes to fight in the war. The train is taking him to an army base, and he knows he may die in Vietnam. At the end of the song he states, "I don't know if I'm ever coming home."


November 5, 1967 –
A forgotten neo-noir film, The Incident, directed by Larry Peerce and starring Victor Arnold, Robert Bannard, Beau Bridges, Ruby Dee, Robert Fields, Jack Gilford, Mike Kellin, Ed McMahon, Gary Merrill, Donna Mills, Tony Musante, Brock Peters, Thelma Ritter, Martin Sheen, Jan Sterling, and Diana Van der Vlis, was released on this date.



The New York Transit Authority denied permission to film even background shots on its property, but the filmmakers shot them anyway. Cinematographer Gerald Hirschfeld and an assistant rode the subway with a hidden camera, and when its sound was noticed, they stopped and came back later to finish the job. Hirschfeld said in an interview that he filmed in black and white in order to get "the most realistic style of photography possible"; test shots were taken in muted color but they were deemed to distract from the desired somber effect.


November 5, 1974 -
The Eagles hit, Best of My Love, was released on this date. It did not reach #1 spot until March 1, 1975.



This song is often played at weddings and anywhere else one wants to demonstrate affection, but it's really a breakup song: "You see it your way, and I see it mine, and we both see it slipping away." No happy ending here, just a guy who gave it his best, but things didn't work out.


November 5, 1976 -
An early John Carpenter police drama Assault on Precinct 13, starring Austin Stoker ,Darwin Joston, Laurie Zimmer, Tony Burton, Martin West, Charles Cyphers, and Nancy Kyes, was released on this date.



John Carpenter has acknowledged that Night of the Living Dead was an influence on the marauding street gang. Like George A. Romero's zombies, they're completely dehumanized. They hardly talk and almost seem supernatural in their ongoing resilience.


November 5, 1988 –
The Beach Boys' (except for Brian, whose therapist Eugene Landy wouldn't let him participate, but that's another story,) single, Kokomo goes to No. #1 on the Billboard charts, on this date.



Music producer Terry Melcher, son of Doris Day and intended target of the Manson family murders, wrote this song with the help of John Phillips, who was a former member of The Mamas And The Papas, along with Beach Boy Mike Love, and Scott McKenzie, who had a hit in 1967 with San Francisco (Be Sure To Wear Flowers In Your Hair).


November 5, 1993 -
James Ivory's masterful adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro's novel, Remains of the Day, starring Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson, premiered on this date.



It was while shooting Mr. & Mrs. Bridge in Kansas City that Remak Ramsay, who was reading The Remains of the Day novel, while playing a part in the movie, gave the book to director James Ivory to read, thinking that its subject and setting might intrigue Ivory.


Another little known Monopoly card


Today in History:
On November 5, 1492, Christopher Columbus wrote in his journal that, in the interior of Cuba, there was a great deal of land "sowed with a sort of beans and a sort of grain they call Mahiz, which was well tasted, baked, dried, and made into flour."



Given how things worked out for them, the Native people should have kept maize to themselves.


November 5, 1605 -
Remember, remember the 5th of November



The Gunpowder Plot of 1605, or the Powder Treason, as it was known at the time, was a failed attempt by Guy Fawkes and a group of provincial English Catholics to kill King James I of England, his family, and most of the Protestant aristocracy in a single attack by blowing up the Houses of Parliament during the State Opening on this date.



The conspirators had also planned to abduct the royal children, (who were surprisingly Protestant, as well) not present in Parliament, and incite a revolt in the Midlands. the conspirators were captured before the plot could take place. They were all drawn and quartered.



On November 5th each year, people in the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth countries and regions celebrate the failure of the plot on what is known as Guy Fawkes Night, Bonfire Night, Fireworks Night, Cracker Night or Plot Night by getting drunk and setting things on fire.


November 5, 1895 -
George B. Selden was a lawyer and inventor who was granted the first U.S. patent (Patent No. 549,160) for an automobile, which he invented in 1877.

The idea of a horseless carriage was in the air during George's youth, but its practicality was uncertain. In 1859, his father, Judge Henry R. Selden, a prominent Republican attorney, moved to Rochester, New York, where George briefly attended the University of Rochester before dropping out to enlist in the Sixth U.S. Cavalry, Union Army. This was not to the liking of his father who after pulling some strings and having some earnest discussions with his son managed to have him released from duty and enrolled in Yale. George did not do well at Yale in his law studies, preferring the technical studies offered by the Sheffield Scientific School, but did manage to finish his course of study and pass the New York bar in 1871 and joined his father's practice. He married shortly thereafter to Clara Drake Woodruff, with whom he had four children. He continued his hobby of inventing in a workshop in his father's basement, inventing a typewriter and a hoop making machine.

Selden's father, Henry Selden, was chosen by Abraham Lincoln to be Vice President, but he turned it down (and in light of Lincoln's assassination, Henry Selden would have otherwise been the next American President).

He defended Susan B. Anthony in her 1873 trial for unlawfully voting as a woman (had she only voted as a honey badger, there would have been no problem.)

Who knew?


November 5, 1895 -
On that same day, the Prince of Wales, shortly to become King Edward VII and master of almost one-fifth of the land area of the planet, was roused from a nap after a long afternoon of whore mongering and a heavy lunch, remarks in a speech, 'We are all socialists nowadays'.

As anticipated, his mother Queen Victoria was not amused.


November 5, 1911 -
Roy Rogers, singing cowboy (Happy Trails, Roy Rogers Show), was born on this date.



He was born as Leonard Franklin Slye in Cincinnati where his father worked in a shoe factory. He died in 1998 at age 86.


November 5, 1971 -
Elvis Presley kicked off a 15-date North American tour at the Metropolitan Sports Center in Bloomington, MN, on this date. Announcer Al Dvorin uttered the well known phrase: "Elvis has left the building" at the end of the show.



He was asked to make the announcement in an effort to quiet the fans who continued to call for an encore.

So now you know


November 5, 2007 -
China's first lunar satellite, Chang'e 1, was launched on October 24, 2007, and successfully entered the Moon orbit on this date.



It orbited the Moon for more than one year as part of the first stage of the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program.


With 90 days between the equinox on September 22 and the solstice on December 21, we are halfway through the relevant seasons



(Autumn or Fall in the northern hemisphere; Spring in the southern hemisphere) on this day.


While you are considering that, keep this in mind:

Make your plans, as you see fit.


And so it goes

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