Here comes the freedom man

On this date in 1989, this day officially became knowm as Uncle Sam Day.



The day commemorates Sam Wilson, born on September 13, 1766, (a meatpacker from New York,) the man behind the iconic image and fascinating nickname for the United States government.


September 13, 1941 -
The Merrie Melodies short, All This and Rabbit Stew, directed by Tex Avery Davis, and starring Bugs Bunny, was released on this date.



The cartoon is one of the infamous "Censored 11" by United Artists (and currently Warner Bros.) since 1968, due to its caricature of a blackface African-American hunter. This is the only Bugs Bunny cartoon to be in the "Censored 11".


September 13, 1965 -
The Beatles released the single Yesterday in the US on this date (Act Naturally was on the B side.)



This was the first Beatles song to capture a mass adult market. Most of their fans were young people to this point, but this song gave the band a great deal of credibility among the older crowd. It also became one of their "Muzak" classics, as companies recorded instrumental versions as soothing background noise for shopping centers and elevators. Another Beatles song that lived on in this form is Here Comes The Sun.


September 13, 1965 -
Ben Gazzara's series about a wealthy, successful lawyer, Paul Bryan, who quits his practice after learning he has a terminal illness, Run for Your Life, premiered on NBC-TV on this date.



Some sources claim that Ben Gazzara's character suffered from leukemia. However, in a 1998 interview conducted by television book writer Ed Robinson, Executive Producer Roy Huggins indicated that the affliction from which Paul Bryan suffered was never mentioned on the program and does not exist.


September 13, 1969 -
Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! made its CBS network debut on this date.



Shaggy is the only character (apart from Scooby himself) to be in every incarnation of the series.


September 13, 1972 -
The sitcom, The Paul Lynde Show, starring Paul Lynde, Elizabeth Allen, Jane Actman, and Pamelyn Ferdin, premiered on ABC-TV on this date.



Elizabeth Allen visited Washington, D.C., during a tour to promote the series. When told that the local ABC affiliate, WMAL-TV Channel 7 (now WJLA-TV), aired the series on weekend afternoons rather than in its scheduled prime time slot, she exclaimed rhetorically "How do they expect us to get good ratings?!" The series only lasted one season.


September 13, 1972 -
The very dark comedy cult classic, The Ruling Class, directed by Peter Medak, and starring Peter O'Toole, Alastair Sim, William Mervyn, Coral Browne, Harry Andrews, Carolyn Seymour, James Villiers and Arthur Lowe, opened in New York City, on this date.



Alastair Sim apparently cast himself in the role as the Bishop. He called up his friend Peter O'Toole and told him, out of the blue, of course he'd help him by taking the part. No one was about to turn down the offer of such a great character actor, no matter how eccentric.


September 13, 1974 -
The science fiction/ horror series Kolchak: The Night Stalker premiered on ABC-TV on this date.



Darren McGavin is often incorrectly considered to be, and listed in many official references guides, as the show's Executive Producer. In fact, he never held the position, although he unofficially assumed many of the duties. This put him at odds with Paul Playdon and then Cy Chermak, the official producers appointed by Universal.


September 13, 1974 -
The first regularly scheduled episode of The Rockford Files, starring James Garner, premiered on NBC-TV on this date.



Co-writer/co-producer David Chase would go on afterwards to create another famous series, The Sopranos . As a little tribute to this series, a scene in a first season episode of The Sopranos is set in a retirement home where the residents are watching television. Though the picture can't be seen, the theme music for The Rockford Files can be heard.


September 13, 1977 -
The nighttime parody of daytime soap operas, Soap, starring Jimmy Baio, Rebecca Balding, Roscoe Lee Browne, John Byner, Diana Canova, Billy Crystal, Cathryn Damon, Nancy Dolman, Robert Guillaume, and Katherine Helmond premiered on ABC TV, on this date.



Soap was actually the working title for the show, while the producers tried to come up with a better name, and was used all through pre-production. No better name was ever decided upon, so Soap became the formal title when the show went into production.


September 13, 1979 -
A spin-off of the series Soap, Benson, starring Robert Guillaume, James Noble, Inga Swenson, and Missy Gold premiered on ABC TV, on this date.



The series was on the air seven years, longer than the show from which it was spun off, Soap, which lasted four years.


September 13, 1980 -
The musical variety show, Solid Gold, featuring Dionne Warwick and the Solid Gold dancers, premiered in syndication on this date.



Rumor has it that Wayland Flowers, whose scene-stealing puppet, Madame, was a recurring guest, was so high on cocaine that he frequently had to be carried on and off the set. Theme composer/musical director Michael K. Miller disagreed, "I was at all the tapings of Solid Gold (and a lot of the Madame's Place tapings too) and I never once witnessed him as being anything other than fully focused and healthy."


September 13, 1986 –
Wang Chung released the single Everybody Have Fun Tonight, on this date



The video was one of the many memorable Godley & Creme productions of the '80s; some of their other videos include Rockit by Herbie Hancock and Only Time Will Tell by Asia. The team was always trying new techniques in an effort to create something eye-catching and different. For Everybody Have Fun Tonight they got their hands on a Grass Valley switcher with a piece of software that could cut back and forth between sources at two-frame intervals. They shot the footage first, then ran it through the switcher to achieve the effect.


September 13, 1986 -
CBS allowed a strange, pale man, in an ill-fitting suit to come into their viewers homes (to scream really loud) when Pee-Wee's Playhouse premiered on this date.



Throughout the entire series run, the closing credits have never credited Paul Reubens as Peewee Herman, but instead would display the other cast & guest stars first and then would display "and Peewee Herman as Himself".


September 13, 1993 -
Coco, a Simpson TV writer, was snatched from obscurity to replace David Letterman on the newly rebranded Late Night with Conan O'Brien on NBC-TV on this date.



According to O'Brien, the show was cancelled during the first season, but NBC realized that they had nothing to replace it. NBC renewed the show a few weeks at a time.


September 13, 1996 -
The family comedy based on the stand-up routines of Ray Romano, Everybody Loves Raymond, starring Ray Romano, Patricia Heaton, Brad Garrett, Doris Roberts and Peter Boyle, premiered on CBS-TV on this date.



Throughout the series when Ray comes home he calls Debra a different nickname. All of these were improvised by Ray Romano. Sometimes he would have to come up with as many as fifteen names depending on how many takes were required.


September 13, 2000 -
Cameron Crowe's autobiographic film, Almost Famous, was released on this date.



Stillwater's songs were written by Peter Frampton (who also had a small part in the film), Cameron Crowe, and his ex-wife Nancy Wilson of the rock band Heart. The music acknowledgments credit Russell Hammond and Stillwater as if they were real authors and performers.


Another record from the discount bin at The ACME Record Shoppe


Today in History:
September 13, 1848 -
A 13-pound tamping iron is blown through the head of railroad construction foreman Phineas P. Gage, entering beneath the left cheekbone and exiting the top of his head. The metal bar landed 30 yards away, taking with it much of his left frontal lobe.



Gage never loses consciousness, even while the doctors examine his wound. Two months later, he was well enough to return home and resume an active life of work and travel.



The steel rod, along with a cast of Gage's head, and his skull, are now on display at Harvard Medical School's Warren Anatomical Museum.


September 13, 1899 -
Henry M. Bliss was coming home from work today and never came back. Mr. Bliss was enjoying his ride home near Central Park and 74th Street, when he stepped out of a streetcar and into the street and was struck by a taxicab. Bliss was rushed to a hospital but died from his injuries the next morning.

The cab driver Arthur Smith was arrested and charged with manslaughter. The charges were dropped after it was determined that Bliss’ death was unintentional. Bliss became the first pedestrian to be killed by an automobile in the United States.

On September 13, 1999, a hundred years to the day, Citystreets unveiled a historical marker at the site of the first "American Pedestrian Fatality".


September 13, 1916 -
Give the people what they want ....

Mary the circus elephant was publicly executed in the Erwin, Tennessee rail-yard, after killing a drifter named Walter "Red" Eldridge the previous day.



The five-ton animal was hanged from a derrick car in front of 3,000 onlookers, and left hanging for half an hour.

(Please bunkies, I am not encouraging the execution of any animal, especially mammals weighing over five tons.)


September 13, 1916 -
Roald Dahl was born on this date in Llandaff, South Wales.



He was sent off to private boarding schools as a kid, which he hated except for the chocolates, Cadbury chocolates. The Cadbury chocolate company had chosen his school as a focus group for new candies they were developing. Every so often, a plain gray cardboard box was issued to each child, filled with eleven chocolate bars. It was the children's task to rate the candy, and Dahl took his job very seriously. About one of the sample candy bars, he wrote, "Too subtle for the common palate." He later said that the experience got him thinking about candy as something manufactured in a factory, and he spent a lot of time imagining what a candy factory might be like.



Today, he's best known for his children's book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and for the fact he ran off with his children's nanny after his wife, the actress Patricia Neal, recovered from a stroke. But even more interesting, a recently published biography of Dahl, purports that he was a spy for the British government during World War II, paid to sleep with wealthy U. S. women to gain information for the British government.

And you thought only 007 had a way with women.


September 13, 1940 -
The German Luftwaffe directly targeted Buckingham Palace during 'the Blitz' and dropped a bomb into the palace courtyard and detonated on impact on this date. The force of the explosion blew out all the inside windows of the palace.



No one was seriously hurt and had the unintended effect of bonding the Royal Family with the people of England, as the Windsors did not evacuate London.



Queen Elizabeth (the queen's mother) narrowly averted serious injury.



When asked about the incident said, "I am glad we have been bombed….it makes me feel like I can look the [heavily bombed] East End in the face."


September 13, 1948 -
Republican Margaret Chase Smith of Maine was elected to the U.S. Senate, on this date, becoming the first woman to serve in both houses of Congress.



A moderate Republican, she was among the first to criticize the tactics of Joseph McCarthy in her 1950 speech, "Declaration of Conscience". Smith was a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in the 1964 election; she was the first woman to be placed in nomination for the presidency at a major party's convention.


September 13, 1956 -
IBM introduced the worlds first production hard disk the "IBM 305", on this date, which stored five megabytes of data.



To put this in perspective a modern USB drive stores 2 gig or more (400 times more than the first hard drive just 50 years ago) and fits on a keychain , the first IBM weighed over a ton and needed a fork lift to move it.


September 13, 2001 -
While the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were still smoldering, President Bush asked Congress for powers to wage war, following the 9/11 attack, against an unidentified enemy.

Bush called the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington "the first war of the 21st century" as his administration labeled fugitive Osama bin Laden a prime suspect.



And so it goes

Lassie would stare at a hole in the ground and make you feel guilty for not owning a rope.

September 12, 1954 -
What girl - Jeff's trapped in a mine; fell into a well; considering early withdrawal of his principle from an IRA; worried about the outcome of the 2024 presidential election ...

Lassie (or Jeff's Collie - how many of you remember Jeff's Collie) premiered on on CBS-TV on this date.



Although it has been the subject of many spoofs and misquotes, the one situation that Timmy never needed saving from in the entire history of the show was falling down a well.


September 12, 1955 -
Another of Orson Welles' great Shakespearean films, Othello, finally opened in New York City on this date.



The movie was shot over three years and production was stopped twice, mainly because Welles ran out of money. He then starred in the films The Third Man and Prince of Foxes. When he made The Black Rose, Orson Welles insisted that the coat his character wore be lined with mink, even though the lining would never be visible in the finished film. The producers acquiesced to this demand. When the shoot was over, the coat disappeared. In Othello, Orson Welles can be seen wearing the same coat, complete with mink lining.


September 12, 1958 -
The ultimate drive-in movie, The Blob, premiered on this date. (Great bar bet - the movie's theme song was written by Burt Bacharach and Mack David (Hal David's brother))



The actual Blob, a mixture of red dye and silicone, has never dried out and is still kept in the original five-gallon pail in which it was shipped to the production company in 1958 from Union Carbide. It was put on display over the years as a part of the annual Blobfest, held over a three-day period each summer in Phoenixville, PA, which provided a number of the shooting locales for the film. In addition to displaying the Blob and miniatures used in the shooting, the event features a reenactment of the famous scene in which panicked theatergoers rush to exit the town's still-functioning Colonial Theater, as well as several showings of the film.


September 12, 1959 -
That's why we call it Bonanza...Bonanza...Bonanza...

Bonanza, the first US television series to be broadcast in color, premiered on NBC-TV on this date.



Most viewers have only heard the famous theme song by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans played as an instrumental. The theme song actually had lyrics and there is footage of the lead actors singing those lyrics. Lorne Greene, Dan Blocker and Michael Landon sang a lyric version of this famous instrumental theme for the pilot, but it never aired.



Johnny Cash recorded his own version of the theme song.


September 12, 1961 -
The Looney Tunes short, Prince Violent, directed by Friz Freleng and starring Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam, was released on this date.



Sam, ostensibly a Viking, has an elephant aide for some inexplicable reason.


September 12, 1966 -
CBS-TV premiered Family Affair on this date.



The show almost moved to ABC following its cancellation, but the idea was nixed because that network already had a show with a similar theme, The Brady Bunch.



(come on you want to sing it: Buffy, Buffy come back to me ...)


September 12, 1966 -
NBC television premiered The Monkees, a sitcom about four guys in a rock band on this date.



When the TV series was about to be renewed for a third season, The Monkees wanted to change it from a half-hour sitcom to an hour-long variety show where they would introduce new artists. However, NBC gave the group an ultimatum: stick with the format as it was or be cancelled. They stuck to their guns and, as a result, the series was cancelled after two seasons on the air.


September 12, 1970 -
Long tails and and ears for hats...

Josie and the Pussycats premiered on CBS-TV on this date.



Hanna-Barbera wanted to change Valerie to a Caucasian even though she was already established as African-American in the Archie comics, so they wanted to fire Patrice Holloway who had been cast as Valerie's singing voice. But Danny Janssen, who was producing the real-life group's Capitol album, refused to fire Holloway and Hanna-Barbera relented.


September 12, 1972 -
Another spin-off from the All In The Family Series, Maude premiered on CBS-TV on this date.



Maude was Norman Lear's favorite show from his own production company.


September 12, 1972 -
The animated series Wait Till Your Father Gets Home (a spin-off from a segment on Love American Style,) voiced by Tom Bosley, Joan Gerber, Jack Burns, David Hayward, Kristina Holland, and Jackie Haley premiered ABC-TV on this date



There was a live action version of the pilot filmed prior to the animated version for CBS. The live action version would have starred Van Johnson as a version of the "Harry Boyle" character.


September 12, 1972 -
The comedy series, Temperature Rising, starring James Whitmore, Cleavon Little, David Baily, Joan Van Ark, Reva Rose, and Nancy Fox, premiered on ABC-TV on this date.



Produced by William Asher, of The Patty Duke Show and Betwitched fame, this series is unique in that it was aired in three different formats and cast line-ups during it's network run.


September 12, 1978 -
The show James L. Brooks and friends created after the Mary Tylet Moore series ended, Taxi, starring Judd Hirsch, Jeff Conaway, Marilu Henner, Tony Danza, Christopher Lloyd, Danny DeVito, and Andy Kaufman premiered on this date.



Andy Kaufman had invented the persona for his character in his comedy act prior to working on the show, including the famous line "tank-you-veddy-much". It was the show's writers that came up with the name of Latka Gravas. Kaufman created Latka's language, which he taught to Carol Kane for her role as Simka, by inviting her to dinner, and refusing to let her speak English.


September 12, 1986 -
Captain EO, starring Michael Jackson and directed by Francis Ford Coppola, made its gala premiere at Disneyland in Anaheim, CA and at Disney's Epcot Center in Orlando, FL on this date.



At a cost of about one million dollars per minute of film, this was, minute for minute, the most expensive motion picture of all time.

Don't forget to tune in to The ACME Eagle Hand Soap Radio Hour today


Today in History -
September 12, 490 B.C. –
It looked like it was going to be a pretty bleak day for Western Civilization. The Greeks, who were not yet Ancient or Classical, were facing a massive invasion by the Persians. Persia was not yet part of the Axis of Evil, but was pretty nasty just the same. They had more soldiers than the Greeks, better cavalry, and better weapons. (They did not have ouzo, moussaka, or the mastery of sodomy, however; it may have been envy of those quintessentially Greek achievements that drove them to invade.)

The general in charge of the Greeks was the Athenian Miltiades, also known as Uncle Milti.

In addition to his own Athenians, he had been given Plataean soldiers and the promised support of the Spartans. It was the first time the various city-states had prepared to fight together against a common enemy.

Despite his strong defensive position, entrenched in the hilly terrain around Marathon, Uncle Milti was afraid that the superior numbers of the Persians would allow them to fight through the Greek defenses and destroy Western Civilization. In order to prevent this, he launched an offensive.

It caught the Persians off guard, driving them off the land, into their ships, and back toward Persia.



This was the Battle of Marathon, at which Western Civilization was saved for the first time – ensuring a future for diet cola, fat-free potato chips, and pay-per-view sports. (The Battle of Marathon is not related to the Marathon Bar or Marathon Man, but neither of them could have come about without it.)

Here is a special note to the strange people who run marathons. After winning the battle, a runner named Pheidippides was supposedly sent back to Athens to announce the victory.

Racing about 25 miles to get back to Athens, Pheidippides delivered the momentous message Niki! (Victory!), then promptly collapsed and died, thereby setting a precedent for dramatic conclusions to the marathon – and the first sports-product endorsement.

The modern Olympic Games introduced a marathon race of 40,000 meters, or 24.85 miles. The winner was Spiridon Louis, a Greek postal worker from the village of Marousi and a veteran of several long military marches. His time was 2 hours, 58 minutes, 50 seconds for the 40-kilometer distance – an average pace of 7:11 minutes per mile.



At the 1908 Olympic Games in London, the marathon distance was changed to 26 miles to cover the ground from Windsor Castle to White City Stadium, with 385 yards added so the race could finish in front of King Edward VII's royal box. After 16 years of extremely heated discussion, this 26.2-mile distance was established at the 1924 Olympics in Paris as the official marathon distance.



Remember all this the next time you run a race.


September 12, 1609 -
The explorer Henry Hudson sailed up the river which eventually came to be called the Hudson River, on this date. He was on an expedition for the Dutch East India Company, trying to find a passage to Asia - the Northwest Passage. This was back when Europeans believed that North America was a rather small land mass, and if they could just find a way through it, they could get to the Asian markets. The Dutch were not great masterminds it appears.



Henry Hudson sailed up the river, anchoring his ship at what is now West 42nd Street and the Hudson River (which was curiously named after him.) He was hoping to get tickets to see Six or at least Christmas Spectacular Starring the Radio City Rockettes before it closed. When he discovered that he was at least 350 years too earlier and that the only tickets available were the all - Native American version of Strange Interludes, he immediately got back on his boat and went up as far as the site of modern day Albany, turned around, and went back to Amsterdam.


September 12, 1683 -
Friar Marco d'Aviano, sent by Pope Innocent XI to unite the outnumbered Christian troops in the besieged city of Vienna, spurred them to victory on this date. The Turks left behind sacks of coffee which the Christians found too bitter, so they sweetened it with honey and milk and named the drink cappuccino after the Capuchin order of monks to which d'Aviano belonged.



An Austrian baker created a crescent-shaped roll, the Kipfel, to celebrate the victory. Empress Marie Antoinette later took it to France where it became the croissant.


September 12, 1878 -
On this date, a magnificent phallic symbol was erected on the bank of the Thames. Despite its name, it doesn’t really have anything to do with Cleopatra.



The obelisk has a twin in New York's Central Park, also named Cleopatra's Needle.



It has nothing to do with Cleopatra, either.



There’s another in Paris, though it isn’t the twin of either London’s or New York’s (which would have made it a triplet). And yes—you guessed it—it also has nothing to do with Cleopatra.


September 12, 1940 -
The Lascaux Caves in France, with their prehistoric wall paintings, were discovered outside Montignac, France, in the Dordogne region by four teenagers who stumble upon the ancient artwork (15,000 to 17,000 years old) after following their dog down a narrow entrance into a cavern, on this date.



There are more than 600 paintings and 1,500 engravings in the cave. The paintings consisting mostly of animal representations (horses), are among the finest examples of art from the Paleolithic period. It was opened to the public at one point, but closed in 1963 because the paintings were fading due to the artificial light used to illuminate the cave.


September 12, 1959 -
While Americans were home watching Bonanza on this date, the Soviet Union launched Lunik II toward the Moon aboard a Luna 8K72 carrier rocket. It was the first man-made object to reach the Moon from Earth.



It was the Soviet's second attempt to launch a rocket to the moon and the first successful attempt when it landed two days later. It's data-collecting mission lasted 33.5 hours.


September 12, 1977 -
The body of Stephen Biko was discovered on the floor of a jail cell in Pretoria on this date. The South African civil rights activist had been beaten and tortured six days earlier, during an interrogation in Port Elizabeth.



Police officials claim that Biko probably suffered the fatal injuries when he "fell out of bed."


September 12, 1993 –
Over a period of time, if you have a successful show, then you have a devoted audience. I feel you owe something to them. That goes for everybody - writers, camera operators, actors, studio executives, etc. Sadly, I've realized it's a responsibility that very few people live up to.



Famous Godzilla, Perry Mason and Ironside actor and Nipple Rouge entrepreneur Raymond Burr died after a battle with liver cancer on this date.


September 12, 1994 -
After a night of boozing and smoking crack, Frank Corder stole a Cessna P150 and crashed it into the south lawn of the White House on this date.

I used to say that there was no truth to the rumor that Newt Gingrich bought Frank the boozes and the crack but now after all that occurred after January 6th, I'm not so sure.



And so it goes

To remember the unimaginable is our duty

On the morning of September 11, 2001, 19 terrorists affiliated with al-Qaeda hijacked four commercial passenger jet airliners.



Each team of hijackers included a trained pilot. The hijackers crashed two of the airliners into the World Trade Center in New York City, resulting in the collapse of both buildings soon afterward.

A third airliner was crashed into the Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia.

Passengers and members of the flight crew on the fourth aircraft attempted to retake control of their plane from the hijackers; that plane crashed into a field near the town of Shanksville in rural Somerset County, Pennsylvania. In addition to the 19 hijackers, 2,974 people died; another 23 were missing and presumed dead.

As always, your friends at ACME remind you to hug your friends and family, call or write an old friend you haven't spoken to in awhile, say, "hello" to your neighbors or at least, say "Good Morning" to a stranger on the street.


Let's lighten the mood just a bit:


September 11, 1932 -
MGM released the Edmund Goulding classic Grand Hotel, starring Greta Garbo, John Barrymore and Joan Crawford, on this date.



John Barrymore was so thrilled at the prospect of appearing in the film with Greta Garbo that he accepted a three picture deal with MGM.


September 11, 1937 -
The Looney Tunes short, Porky's Garden, directed by Tex Avery and starring Porky Pig, was released on this date.



The baby chick eating spinach, therefore growing tall and strong and speaking in a gruff voice, is a reference to Popeye the Sailor


September 11 1943 -
The Merrie Melodies short, Hiss and Make Up, directed by Friz Freleng, was released on this date.



As the bird tries to get the dog and cat in trouble by making a mess and imitating their voices, a "blink-and-you'll-miss-it" portrait can be seen on the wall to the right of the green curtains. It appears to be a caricature of Mel Blanc.


September 11, 1948 -
The Looney Tunes short, The Pest That Came to Dinner, directed by Arthur Davis, and starring Porky Pig, was released on this date.



Sureshot appears to have been inspired by then-popular comic pitchman Sid Stone.


September 11, 1966 -
The Rolling Stones made their fourth appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show on this date.



The audience in the studio really loved the Stones performance and even Ed told the crowd, “You’re yelling much better this year.” There is no word on whether or not Ed Sullivan was drunk at the time.


September 11, 1967 -
The Carol Burnett Show premiered on CBS-TV on this date.



It was revealed years later that each week's show was taped twice in front of different audiences and the best parts from each taping were edited together. It was stated that the first performance had the actors sticking closely to the scripts, but the second was where the actors improvise and ad-lib, which were usually the funnier versions.


September 11, 1971 -
The Jackson 5 cartoon series, called The Jackson 5ive, premiered on ABC on this date.



Each episode shows various adventures with animated versions of the group, along with Michael's pet mice Ray and Charles, and his snake Rosie. The cartoon ran from 1971-1973.


September 11, 1974 -
The TV drama Lucas Tanner starring David Hartman, Rosemary Murphy, Kimberly Beck, John Randolph, and Robbie Rist, premiered ABC-TV on this date.



Lucas Tanner was based on a collection of novels by Richard Posner, who wrote under his own name and under a variety of pseudonyms. He was active from the 1970s to the 1990s, working in the mainstream, crime, and Gothic genres.


September 11, 1982 -
Frank Zappa's song Valley Girl (featuring his daughter Moon Unit Zappa,) reaches its chart peak of #32 on the Billboard Hot 100, on this date.



Frank Zappa released 62 albums in his lifetime (many more appeared after his death), but Valley Girl is his only song to crack the US Top 40. Hearing him on playlists alongside Rick Springfield and Journey was shocking to Zappa fans, who were accustomed to his subversive tunes and caustic attitude toward mainstream music.


September 11, 1992 -
The very successful (at the time) but almost forgotten comedy/ thriller Sneakers, starring Robert Redford, Dan Aykroyd, Ben Kingsley, Mary McDonnell, River Phoenix, Sidney Poitier and David Strathairn, opened on this date.



The movie deals with the impact of a factoring breakthrough on encryption, a reference to the RSA algorithm, the most popular public-key encryption algorithm in use today. Professor Len Adleman, one of the co-inventors of the RSA algorithm, provided some technical guidance on this movie in exchange for giving his wife a chance to meet Robert Redford.


September 11, 1995 -
The comedy Ned and Stacey, starring Thomas Haden Church and Debra Messing premiered on Fox-TV on this date.



Debra Messing was reportedly pressured to wear enhancements in her bra to make her breasts look bigger for the show. Fresh out of college, Messing felt obliged to wear them as she feared she would lose the role if she refused.


Another unimportant moment in history


Today in History:
September 11, 1792 -
During a week-long looting of the crown jewels in September of 1792, The French Blue Diamond, was stolen in Paris on this date. The 45.5-carat Hope diamond is thought to have been cut from the famous French Blue diamond that disappeared after this robbery.



The French Blue never resurfaced, but the Hope Diamond, which is likely one-half of the French Blue, did. It is now displayed in the Smithsonian Natural History Museum.


September 11, 1789 -
Alexander Hamilton became the first US Secretary of the Treasury on this date.



President George Washington initially appointed Robert Morris, a senator and Superintendent of Finance, but he refused the appointment.


September 11, 1903 -
The world's oldest automobile race track, The Milwaukee Mile, held its first race on this date.

The Milwaukee Mile opened in West Allis, Wisconsin in 1903; it continues to host auto races every year there since then (except during U.S. involvement in World War II.)


September 11, 1936 -
Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicates Boulder Dam (now Hoover Dam) by pressing a key in Washington to signal the startup of the dam's first hydroelectric generator in Nevada.





Hoover Dam is 726 feet tall and 660 feet thick at its base. Enough rock is excavated in its construction to build the Great Wall of China. Contrary to urban myths, no workers are buried in the dam's concrete.


September 11, 1951 -
Florence Chadwick, American endurance swimmer, swam English Channel from England to France in 16 hours and 22 minutes, on this date.



This made her the first woman to swim the English Channel in both directions, and set a record for the England-France journey. All told, she swam the English Channel four times.


September 11, 1971 -
Former Soviet leader Nikita Krushchev suffered a fatal heart attack in his provincial exile on this date.



He was the first Soviet leader to die a natural death (Lenin was possibly poisoned by Stalin. Stalin was probably poisoned by Georgy Malenkov, Nikolai Bulganin and Nikita Krushchev. Georgy Malenkov and Nikolai Bulganin were premiers before Krushchev but died after him.)


September 11, 1978 -
Medical photographer Janet Parker became the last recorded person to die from smallpox on this date. She often worked above Professor Henry Bedson's laboratory at University of Birmingham Medical School where research on smallpox viruses was being conducted.



A year after smallpox was eradicated worldwide, the virus escaped from the lab infecting Parker. Bedson, who had been working to rid the world of smallpox, killed himself the next day.


September 11, 1980 -
The famous 45-carat diamond, the Marlborough diamond, worth about $640,000, was taken from a jewelry store window display on this date. The robbers, Arthur "The Brain" Rachel and Joseph "The Monk" Scalise, mobsters from Chicago, Illinois staged a daring daytime theft of the jewelry.

They were caught just a few hours later, but the diamond, once one of the Crown jewels, has never been found. Both men were convicted and began serving 15-year prison terms in 1984 and were released in 1993.

In 2010, the duo, both in their 70s were arrested again for yet another jewel heist.


September 11, 1987 -
CBS-TV went dark for six minutes as news anchor Dan Rather walked off the set of The CBS Evening News on this date.



Dan Rather left the set when the network continued showing a tennis tournament that had played into overtime. He walked off because he was angry that the news was cut short to report on sports news.


Before you go - OMG, I nearly forgot, Rosh Hashanah begins this evening, so we here at ACME are wishing our friends L’shanah Tovah.





As you hear the shofar this evening, remember to start writing 5787 on your checks. Also, I hope your sins are not so numerous that you really couldn't cast them upon the water.



And so it goes