Wherever he laid his hat was his home

The Temptations sang, It was the 3rd of September, that day I'll always remember in their song Papa Was A Rollin' Stone.



This was written by the Motown songwriters Barrett Strong and Norman Whitfield, and produced by Whitfield. It was first recorded by The Undisputed Truth, but Whitfield also had The Temptations record it, with much greater success.


September 3, 1932 -
The Looney Tunes short, Bosko the Lumberjack, directed by Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising starring Bosko, was released on this date.



The idea of a co-worker (in this case, Pierre) kidnapping the love interest (Honey) by use of a hook and raises her to him is reused from the Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoon The Sky Scrapper.


September 3, 1952 -
The screwball comedy, Monkey Business, directed by Howard Hawks and starring Cary Grant, Ginger Rogers, Charles Coburn, and Marilyn Monroe, opened in New York City on this date.



Although the film shares a title with the otherwise unrelated 1931 Marx Brothers comedy Monkey Business, the films have some vague connections: Early in his career, Cary Grant was partly inspired by Zeppo Marx, the team's juvenile straight man. In addition, the 1931 film co-starred Thelma Todd, whose life, career, and mysterious death parallel Grant's co-star here, Marilyn Monroe.


September 3, 1955 -
The Looney Tunes short, Dime to Retire, directed by Bob McKimson starring Porky Pig and Daffy Duck, was released on this date.



Porky paid $5.00 for the cat to get rid of the mouse, $10 for the dog to get rid of the cat, $26 for the lion to get rid of the dog, $72 for the elephant to get rid of the lion and $666 for the mouse to get rid of the elephant making a total of $779.00


September 3, 1960 -
The Merrie Melodies short, From Hare to Heir, directed by Friz Freleng, and starring Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam, was released on this date.



The background of the chasm where Yosemite Sam falls off of was later reused in Devil's Feud Cake.


September 3, 1964 -
The Animals charted No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 with their hit The House Of The Rising Sun, on this date.



The melody is a traditional English ballad, but the song became popular as an African-American folk song. It was recorded by Texas Alexander in the 1920s, then by a number of other artists including Leadbelly, Woody Guthrie, Josh White and later Nina Simone. It was her version The Animals first heard. No one can claim rights to the song, meaning it can be recorded and sold royalty-free. Many bands covered the song after it became a hit for The Animals.


September 3, 1969 -
The stop-motion western, The Valley of Gwangi, directed by Jim O'Connolly, and starring James Franciscus, Richard Carlson, and Gila Golan premiered on this date. This is the last dinosaur film Ray Harryhausen worked on.



When this film was first conceived it was supposed to have been a follow-up to King Kong, but was never made, but an early B&W version of the "cowboys in Africa" footage was shot, and wound up being used in Mighty Joe Young.


September 3, 1969 –
One of Elvis' last film appearance, The Trouble With Girls, starring Elvis Presley, Marlyn Mason, Sheree North, Edward Andrews, Vincent Price, John Carradine, Dabney Coleman, and Joyce Van Patten, premiered on this date.



Elvis Presley typically appeared in every scene of his movies. This film's unusual structure - including a number of guest stars and a plot that unfolds through the eyes of two children - resulted in two unlikely yardsticks: the fewest Presley vocals in all of his musicals, and the film in which he has the least amount of screen time.


September 3, 1969 -
The British caper movie, The Italian Job, directed by Peter Collinson, and starring Michael Caine, Noël Coward, Benny Hill, Raf Vallone, Tony Beckley, Rossano Brazzi, and Maggie Blye, was released on this date.



The film was a huge hit in the UK, and has become a cult film there. It was also well received in France, but it did poorly in the United States. Michael Caine has said he believes that American audiences may have thought the film was too British, Italian-Americans may not have appreciated the tongue-in-cheek nature of the plot, and US audiences in general were unaware of the British cultural references and dark humour scattered throughout.


September 3, 1973 -
The Rolling Stones released their hit, Angie, on this date.



The big rumor about this song is that it was written about David Bowie's wife, Angela, who wrote in her autobiography that she once walked in on Bowie and Mick Jagger in bed together - a story Jagger denies. According to the rumor, Jagger wrote this song to appease her, but it was Jagger's bandmate Keith Richards who wrote most of the song. Jagger had this to say about it: "People began to say that song was written about David Bowie's wife but the truth is that Keith wrote the title. He said, 'Angie,' and I think it was to do with his daughter. She's called Angela. And then I just wrote the rest of it."


September 3, 1982 -
Amy Heckerling's coming of age teen comedy (written by Cameron Crowe), Fast Times at Ridgemont High, went into general release on this date.



Universal didn't think the film would become a hit. In fact, the studio had thought about not releasing it on the East Coast so that the film would die quickly at the box office


September 3, 1982 -
Culture Club released their third single, Do You Really Want To Hurt Me?, is released in the UK, on this date.



This was Culture Club's first single released in the United States. It was a huge and unlikely hit for the British band, who embarked on an American tour in 1983 to gain traction in that country. The song crossed over to Adult Contemporary radio, where most listeners had no idea the lead singer dressed like a girl. MTV, whose library was mostly British bands when they launched, had acclimated their US audience to guys in makeup, so Culture Club wasn't so shocking on the channel and the group developed a huge audience of young people who liked the sound and the look.


September 3, 1983 -
One of the songs that defined MTV in the 80s, Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) by the Eurythmics, gave them their only US chart topper.



In 1978, Squeeze had a UK hit with Take Me I'm Yours, which features the line "Dreams are made of this" in the chorus.



Marilyn Manson recorded the song in 1995, giving a much darker tone to the song.



(In Manson's auto-biography, he related to this song by mentioning that he met people who wanted to be abused by him; and who wanted to use him as well.)


September 3, 1990 -
George Michael released his second solo album, Listen Without Prejudice, on this date.



Listen Without Prejudice was his first release after Sony Music acquired his record label, Columbia, in 1988. The relationship between Michael and Sony was contentious, and when Michael refused to make a video to promote the first single from his album, Praying For Time, a furious Sony released its own video instead, with only the words being displayed across the screen. The album was Michael's last for the label; he sued Sony in 1992 to get out of his contract, but lost the case. Eventually, a deal was reached where he signed with Virgin and Dreamworks SKG, with Sony getting $40 million and a host of other perquisites. His next album, Older, finally arrived in 1996.


September 3, 2006 -
Justin Timberlake (featuring Timbaland) song SexyBack hit No.1 in the UK on this date.



Timberlake wrote this song with his producers, Timbaland and Nate "Danja" Hills. This team also worked on Timberlake's Cry Me A River and produced Nelly Furtado's Promiscuous, which features a cameo by Timberlake in the video.


Another little known Monopoly card


Today in History:
On September 3, 301, during an epic game of hide-and-seek, St. Marinus the Stonemason ran up Mount Titano in Italy to hide from the Roman Emperor Diocletian.

It was a good hiding spot and he was never found.



He started his own country to pass the time,



and Most Serene Republic of San Marino survives to this day.


On September 3, 1189, Richard Lionheart, an enthusiastic french speaking sodomite (which was technical illegal in England,) was crowned King of England on this date.

The son of Henry II (no relation to Rocky II) and Eleanor of Aquitaine, Richard spent most of his ten-year reign abroad. For two of these years he was imprisoned by the Holy Roman Emperor, who was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an emperor, but a nasty little man just the same.



When Richard finally returned to English soil he discovered there had been Intrigues, some of which involved his brothers. He therefore crossed the Channel and defeated France before dying from an arrow wound to the neck inflicted by an 11 year old boy.



He had only produced one son, and the most crushing defeat of Richard's tragic life was his discovery that the child was a little bastard.


September 3, 1838 -
Frederick Douglass escaped slavery disguised as a sailor on this date. Later he wrote about his experiences in a book called The Narrative Life of Frederick Douglass, the title of which may have diminished the effectiveness of his disguise.



(Publishers thought the original title The Narrative Life of a Muscular and Barechested Black Guy Wearing Snug Fitting Sailor Pants with No Underwear would have limited appeal outside certain fetishist circles.)


September 3, 1856 -
Happy Skyscaper Day - Form follows function



It's the birth anniversary of Louis H. Sullivan, often called the 'father of modern skyscrapers'.


September 3, 1928 –
In San Francisco, Philo Farnsworth demonstrates a television system featuring his Image Dissector camera tube to the press for the first time.



The system delivered 20 pictures per second, enough to convince the eye it was looking at motion rather than a series of stills. The San Francisco Chronicle lauded the achievement under the headline: “S.F. Man’s Invention to Revolutionize Television,” and the story was picked up by wire services and papers nationwide. (By 1938, three-fourths of all patents dealing with television were by Farnsworth.)


September 3, 1935 -
Sir Malcolm Campbell became the first person to drive a car more than 300 miles per hour on this date.



Campbell achieved a speed of 301.337 miles per hour at Utah's Bonneville Salt Flats. It was also the first time traffic cop adds "Wow!" to the usual "Do you know how fast you were going?"


September 3, 1939 -
Germany continued its invasion of Poland even though Britain had asked it very nicely to stop. This upset the British sensibility. They declared war on Germany. France followed suit six hours later quickly joined by Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and Canada, making this the official launch of World War II in Europe on this date.



The King’s Speech of George VI (portrayed in the 2010 film The King's Speech,) was broadcast to the people of Britain upon that country’s Declaration of War against Germany. Unprepared to become king, he accepted the role suddenly and reluctantly after his brother took a wife and abdicated the throne. A stutterer from the age of 8, it was almost impossible for him to pronounce the letter ‘k’, but thanks to a last-ditch speech therapist, Australian Lionel Logue (who was in the room during this radio broadcast), King George met the moment and offered great solace to the British people during a terrifying time—a feat that few thought him capable of, due to his years of stuttering.



At the mercy of his greatest weakness - public speaking - he conquered the task with great dignity, after practicing with Logue, who taught him where to pause and breathe during the speech. You can detect one of the techniques used to overcome the stutter, when he uses a very brief “a-” before some of the more difficult words.


September 3, 1965 -
Carlos Irwin Estévez, actor, recovering substance abuser and noted former panderer is another year older today.



Say what you want about Charlie; he seems to know how to live on his own terms and makes it work.


September 3, 1976 -
The unmanned spacecraft Viking 2, the second mission to Mars, landed at Utopia Planitia on the planet and begins transmitting pictures and soil analyses, on this date.



The lander houses instruments to examine the physical and magnetic properties of the soil, analyze the atmosphere and weather patterns of Mars, and to seek out evidence of the presence of life, be it past or present. It took 16,000 pictures in 1,281 days before its batteries died.


September 3, 2004 -
A siege on a Russian school ended with more than 300 people dead, many of them children. The school had been taken hostage by Chechen terrorists on September 1st.



To bring an end to the hostage situation, the Russian military (purportedly under direct order from President Vladimir Putin, who was able to use the crisis to consolidate more power for the Russian Presidency) stormed the school with explosives. 334 hostages died and several hundred others were injured or missing.


September 3, 2017 -
Walter Becker, co-founder and guitarist for the band Steely Dan died aged 67, on this date.



Besides being a member of Steely Dan, Becker had produced records for Rickie Lee Jones, China Crisis and Michael Franks.



And so it goes

Just a wee bit off the top

Today is National Beheading Day, one of the long list of make believe holidays that litter the internet. I'm sorry to say that once again, the board of directors of ACME have rejected the suggestion to become the main corporate sponsor.



So remember to wish your friends and neighbors Happy National Beheading Day. Enjoy the odd look they give you.


September 2, 1937 -
Selznick International Pictures' romantic adventure film, The Prisoner of Zenda, directed by John Cromwell (and an uncredited W. S. Van Dyke,) and starring Ronald Colman, Madeleine Carroll, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., C. Aubrey Smith, Raymond Massey, Mary Astor, and David Niven premiered in the US on this date.



Director John Cromwell was not happy with his cast. In memos to David O. Selznick he said that Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and David Niven were "overindulged and lazy." Ronald Colman "never knows his lines. I don't know which one of them annoys me most. Also, both Colman and Carroll insist they have a 'bad side' to be avoided by the camera, but it's the same 'bad side.' Shooting them face-to-face is all but impossible."


September 2, 1939 -
The Merrie Melodies short, Little Brother Rat, directed by Chuck Jones, and starring Sniffles, was released on this date.



Owl eggs are usually white, or spotted, but definitely not blue.


September 2, 1944 -
The Merrie Melodies short, Goldilocks and the Jivin' Bears, directed by Friz Freleng, was released on this date.



Because the short contains stereotyped portrayals of African-Americans, it is no longer available in any type of authorized release and is among the group of controversial cartoons known to animation buffs as the Censored Eleven.


September 2, 1949 -
Carol Reed's adaptation of Graham Greene's post war thriller, The Third Man, starring Joseph Cotten, Alida Valli, Trevor Howard, and Orson Welles, premiered in London of this date.



During the shooting of the film, the final scene was the subject of a dispute between Graham Greene, who wanted the happy ending of the novella, and Carol Reed and David O. Selznick, who stubbornly refused to end the film on what they felt was an artificially happy note. Greene later wrote:  "One of the very few major disputes between Carol Reed and myself concerned the ending, and he has been proved triumphantly right."


September 2, 1949 -
The Merrie Melodies short, Dough for the Do-Do, directed by Friz Freleng, and Starring Porky Pig, was released on this date. (This short is basically a remake of Porky in Wackyland.)



This was the last Porky Pig cartoon to be directed by Friz Freleng.


September 2, 1950 -
Here, watch your language, bud. We're on the air.

The Merrie Melodies short The Ducksters, directed by Chuck Jones and starring Porky Pig and Daffy Duck, was released on this date. I believe this is one of my favorite non Bug Bunny Looney Tunes ,



On the game show Porky Pig wins:
1. The Rocky Mountains
2. A 17 - Jewel half Nelson
3. The La Brea Tar Pits
4. The Rock of Gibraltar
5. 600 gallons of genuine Niagara Falls
6. $26,000,000.03

The identification of the Ajax Broadcasting Company was an unusual name for Warner Bros.; Ajax was a name more commonly used by rival studio Disney, whereas Warner Bros. would more commonly use Acme Corporation in its later productions.


September 2, 1965 -
The Rolling Stones appeared on the British TV show Ready Steady Go! on this date.



The boys all joined in a parody of Sonny and Cher's I Got You Babe.

Oh those scalawags!


September 2, 1993 -
Neil Young and Pearl Jam performed Young’s song Rockin’ In The Free World at the MTV Video Music Awards on this date.



Pearl Jam have performed this song from time to time with Young, who is their musical mentor. The first time they performed it together was at the 1993 MTV Video Music Awards, where the Jeremy video won four awards. Young came on as a surprise guest after the band played a new song, Animal. By the end of the performance, Vedder had tossed his mic stand into the audience, Mike McCready had smashed his guitar, and the crowd went crazy.


September 2, 1994 -
Hootie & the Blowfish made their first television appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman, on this date.



This song got a lot of airplay and helped make the Cracked Rear View album (named for a line in the 1987 John Hiatt song Learning How To Love You) the best seller of 1995 in the US.


September 2, 2005 –
If you ever need the definition of 'deer in the headlights' moment, just watch Mike Meyers in this clip.



On NBC’s Concert for Hurricane Relief, Kanye West stated that “George Bush doesn’t care about black people”. The comment went out live on the US east coast, but was cut from a taped version seen on the west coast.


September 2, 2006 -
Stephen Frears brilliant portrayal of the royal family's reaction to the death of Princess Diana, The Queen, starring Helen Mirren, Michael Sheen, and James Cromwell premiered at the Venice Film Festival on this date.



Scenes within the Royal household were shot on 35mm film, so they would look lush and cinematic. Scenes within Blair's world were shot on 16mm, so they would look more like television, in order to give visual contrast between commoners and royalty.


Another episode of ACME's Little Known Animal Facts


Today in History -
Pheidippides of Athens sets out on his famous run that inspired the Marathon on this date in 490 BC

(we'll catch up with this fool-hearty soul later and why the marathon is a little more than two mile longer than the re-introduced 1896 marathon.)


September 2, 31BC (you know the drill - drunken orgy going calendar makers, drinking from lead cups lead to inaccurate dates.) -
The Naval Battle of Actium in the Ionian Sea, between Roman leader Octavian and the alliance of Roman Mark Antony and Cleopatra, queen of Egypt, occurred on this date. Octavian soundly defeated Antony's fleet which was burned and 5000 of his men were killed. The rivals battled for control of the Roman Empire at Actium, where Cleopatra, seeing Antony's navy being outmaneuvered by Octavian's, ordered her 60 ships to turn about and flee to safety.



Antony's reaction has baffled historians for ages. When he saw Cleopatra leaving, Antony immediately left his command ship and followed her with 40 of his own ships following. Some have attributed Antony's rash departure to being caught off guard when his lover decided to leave him. Others have argued that Antony and Cleopatra had always secretly planned for him to steal away with her once her ships had the opportunity to break free.


September 2, 1666 -
Thomas Farrinor forgot to put out his oven at the end of his shift, on this date.



Unfortunately, the resulting fire cost him his job as official baker to King Charles II of England and started the Great Fire of London. (Quite surprisingly, only six people 'officially' were declared dead because of the fire. To remember the fire, the city of London erected a monument. Six people have committed suicide by jumping off of it, and two have fallen accidentally to their deaths. You might hear this fun fact repeated on tours or forums: more people have died from falling off the monument than died in the fire.



But it's not true - more like several hundred and quite possibly several thousand; very poor people likely died in the fire, burnt so beyond recognition (and not on the 'official radar') that their remains were not counted.

On the plus side, it burned out of control and destroyed four-fifths of London, thereby ending the Black Plague.


Lydia Kamekeha Liliuokalani was born on this date in 1838.

Upon the death of her brother in 1891, she became sovereign Queen of Hawaii. This was considered posing by the American colonials of Hawaii, who reminded her that monarchy was unconstitutional in the United States.



She reminded them that Hawaii was not part of the United States. This was more than unconstitutional: it was cheeky.



She was immediately deposed, then wrote wrote Aloha Oe and retired; spending the rest of her life, unsuccessfully suing the United States for illegally ceasing her island nation.



(And you wonder why the former president may have hesitated showing his birth certificate.)


September 2, 1901 -
Twelve days before the assassination of President William McKinley, Vice President Theodore Roosevelt offered the advice, "Speak softly and carry a big stick," in a speech at the Minnesota State Fair on this date.



Roosevelt described his style of foreign policy as "the exercise of intelligent forethought and of decisive action sufficiently far in advance of any likely crisis."


USS Shenandoah was the first of four United States Navy rigid airships. She was built from 1922 to 1923 at Lakehurst Naval Air Station, and first flew in September, 1923. She developed the Navy's experience with rigid airships, even making the first crossing of the North American continent by airship.

On September 2, 1925, Shenandoah departed Lakehurst on a promotional flight to the Midwest which would include flyovers of 40 cities and visits to state fairs. Testing of a new mooring mast at Dearborn, Michigan was included in the schedule.



While passing through an area of thunderstorms and turbulence over Ohio early in the morning of the 3rd, the airship was torn apart and crashed in several pieces near Caldwell, Ohio. Shenandoah's commanding officer, Commander Zachary Lansdowne and 13 other officers and men were killed.


September 2, 1930 -
Capt. Dieudonne Costes and Lt. Maurice Bellonte arrived in Valley Stream, N.Y. from Paris (3,852 miles) in 37 hours and 18 minutes, aboard the Question Mark - the first non-stop westbound fixed wing aircraft flight between Europe and America.



The flight was a commemorative return visit of Lindberg's historical flight to Paris in 1927.


Russ Columbo, was an American singer, violinist and actor, most famous for his signature tune, Prisoner of Love and the legend surrounding his early death.



On September 2, 1934, Columbo was shot under peculiar circumstances by his longtime friend, photographer Lansing Brown. Columbo was visiting him at the studio one day. In lighting a cigarette, Brown lit the match by striking it against the wooden stock of an antique French dueling pistol. The flame set off a long-forgotten charge in the gun, and a lead pistol ball was fired. The pistol ball ricocheted off a nearby table and hit Columbo in the left eye, killing him almost instantly.

Columbo's death was ruled an accident, and Brown exonerated from blame. His funeral mass was attended by numerous Hollywood luminaries, including Bing Crosby and Columbo's fiancée Carole Lombard.

Literally, with friends like this, who needs enemies.


September 2, 1945 -
In front of an assembled group of Allied sailors and officers, General Douglas MacArthur signed documents during the surrender ceremony aboard the USS Missouri on this date.



The unconditional surrender of the Japanese to the Allies officially ended the Second World War six years and a day since it began in Poland back in 1939. (Remember, those original Hitler World Tour T-Shirts are still quite valuable.)


September 2, 1969 -
Six weeks after landing men on the Moon, America's first automatic teller machine (ATM), at the time called the Docuteller, made its public debut on this date, dispensing cash to customers at Chemical Bank in Rockville Center, New York.

It marked the first time reusable, magnetically coded cards were used to withdraw cash. Today there are well over 3 million ATMs around the world, with one for approximately every 3,000 people.



And so it goes

Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall.

September is the ninth month of the year, which is why its name is derived from the Latin Septem, meaning seven.

(We have previously addressed this problem last month; see August, the Sixth Month.) On the French Revolutionary calendar, September is known as Vendémiaire (vintage,) and in Dutch, September is "the begining of autumn", Hertmaand. The Basque refer to it as "ear month," and the Congolese, "sánza ya libwá" (Ninth month), the Irish called it "the month of plenty", and the Samoan call it, "September."



September is:
California Wine Month
National Chicken Month
Cable TV Month
National Home Furnishings Month
National Prime Beef Month
Prostate Cancer Awareness Month.



So remember, ask your doctor for Billy the Kid - we think you'll like it.

Since it September 1, if you need to, you'd better hurry to catch the 11 am train,





The Hogwarts Express, that makes a run between London, King's Cross Station Platform 9¾ and Hogsmeade Station, if you need to get back to school.

Another thing about September, today is the start of the season when oysters are fit to eat (when months names contain an "R")



Let us give thanks to that first brave person who ate a raw oyster.

One more thing - For those of you reading this in Los Angeles,

Happy Chicken Boy Day!


It's Emma M. Nutt Day, the first woman telephone operator, hired in 1878. She was hired personally by Alexander Graham Bell. A few hours after Emma started work her sister Stella Nutt went into the family business and became the world's second female telephone operator.

Emma loved the job, and worked at it for 33 years. She, reportedly, was able to remember every single phone number in the New England Telephone Company directory.



She apparently had no life.


September 1, 1902 -
Le Voyage dans la Lune (A Trip to the Moon), written and directed by Georges Méliès, assisted by his brother Gaston, considered to be the first science fiction movie, was released on this date.



After finishing work on the film, Georges Méliès intended to release it in America and thereby make lots of money. Unfortunately, Thomas A. Edison's film technicians had already secretly made copies of the film, which was shown across the USA within weeks. Melies never made any money from the film's American showings, and went broke several years later (while Edison, of course, made a fortune on the film.)

Damn that Edison!


September 1, 1937 -
After it's disasterous initial release in March of 1937, Columbia Pictures cut over 25 minutes of Frank Capra's adventure film Lost Horizon, starring Ronald Colman, Jane Wyatt, Edward Everett Horton, John Howard, Thomas Mitchell, Margo, Isabel Jewell, and Sam Jaffe was re-released on this date.



UCLA tried to reconstruct the film, using the complete 123-minute soundtrack. Most of the missing film was badly degraded and useless, so the restorers used stills to fill in the missing minutes. Later, one minute of the missing footage was found and restored, resulting in some 24 minutes of stills supported by the soundtrack. The one minute of restored footage depicts Conway's meeting with the High Lama.


September 1, 1938 -
Frank Capra bounced back from the disastrous reviews of Lost Horizon, released the previous year, with You Can't Take It with You, which opened in NYC on this date.



Shortly before filming began, Lionel Barrymore lost the use of his legs to crippling arthritis and a hip injury. To accommodate him, the script was altered so that his character had a sprained ankle, and Barrymore did the film on crutches. Barrymore would receive injections every hour to help relieve the pain of his arthritis.


September 1, 1947 -
The screwball comedy, in which Myrna Loy and Shirley Temple play sisters in the film, (even though Myrna Loy was more than 20 years older that Shirley Temple), The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer, opened nationwide on this date.



There are a couple of in joke references to Shirley Temple in the film. When Cary Grant is sitting with Shirley in the soda shop, the waitress serves him a "Shirley Temple" drink. Later, when Shirley is in her room, packing her suitcase, she takes a Shirley Temple doll off the mantle over her fireplace.


September 1, 1948 -
Paramount released the Anatole Litvak noir classic, Sorry Wrong Number, starring Barbara Stanwyck and Burt Lancaster, on this date.



Barbara Stanwyck found that sustaining that level of emotion all week long and then going home on the weekend was a draining experience. "Five days I was handling it, starting the next day's work where I'd picked up, sustaining it all, and then I had two whole days to relax and not to worry about the character, and I tell you it was strange," said Stanwyck. "It was really hard to pump myself up on Monday morning to try to feel that desperate tension."


September 1, 1954 -
The sci-fi film, Tobor the Great (a.k.a. Tobor) directed by Lee Sholem, and starring Charles Drake, Karin Booth, and Billy Chapin, was released on this date.



Here Comes Tobor was a proposed science-fiction TV series. Produced for the 1956 to 1957 season, the project was never picked up and only a pilot episode was filmed but never aired.


September 1, 1956 -
The Merrie Melodies short, The Slap-Hoppy Mouse, directed by Bob McKimson, and starring Sylverster the Cat and Hippety Hopper, was released on this date.



The sign in front of the dilapidated house reads Tralfaz Property. That name would be given to the Jetson's dog in the first series episodes before he became known as Astro.


September 1, 1957 -
The British sci-fi film Quatermass 2 (AKA Enemy From Space), directed by Val Guest and starring Brian Donlevy, John Longden, Sid James, Bryan Forbes, Vera Day, and William Franklyn, was release in the US on this date.



In between takes Brian Donlevy's toupée was accidentally blown off by the aeroplane engine wind machines used during the film's climax.


September 1, 1962 -
The Merrie Melodies short, Honey's Money, directed by Friz Freleng, and starring Yosemite Sam, was released on this date.



One of the few instances where Yosemite Sam is not paired with Bugs Bunny.


September 1, 1972 -
David Bowie released John, I'm only Dancing in the U.K. on this date.



This was the follow-up single to Bowie's British breakthrough Starman. He'd previously charted with Space Oddity back in 1969, but had been unable to follow it up.


September 1, 1983 -
Island Records released the eighth studio album by singer and songwriter Tom Waits, Swordfishtrombones, on this date.



Swordfishtrombones moves away from conventional piano-based songwriting towards unusual instrumentation and a somewhat more abstract and experimental rock approach.


Today's moment of Zen.


Today in History:
September 1, 1854 -
Engelbert Humperdinck was born on this date,



No, not that one,



this one, the German opera composer.


September 1, 1897 -
The first subway in North America was opened in Boston on this date. Trolley car grid-lock and street congestion on main thoroughfares motivated the Massachusetts Legislature to authorize the construction of the subway. (Either that, or their unnatural love of dank, urine drenched underground stations.)



The "cut and cover" method of construction was used, with a deep trench dug or "cut" on Tremont Street, and a steel structure built around it and then filled in or "covered up." The Boston subway designers visited the Budapest Subway, and the later Paris Metro.


September 1, 1904 -
Helen Keller with the tireless assistance of teacher Annie Mansfield Sullivan, graduated cum laude from Radcliffe College at age 24.

Helen Keller was the first non-seeing, non-hearing person to enroll in an institution for higher learning - and then to graduate with a degree.


September 1, 1914 –
The last passenger pigeon, a female named Martha, died in captivity in the Cincinnati Zoo on this date.

There are various reasons for the extinction of the passenger pigeon - the main one unfortunately was they tasted so damn good broasted.



Her body was frozen into a block of ice and sent to the Smithsonian Institution, where it was skinned and mounted.



Martha (named after Martha Washington) is in the museum's archived collection, and was on display a few years ago.


September 1, 1923 -
The worst earthquake in Japan's history hit the Kanto Plain between Tokyo and Yokohama with a magnitude of 7.9 on the Richter scale. The earthquake and subsequent fires killed nearly 140,000 people and destroyed most of both cities.



The fires started because the earthquake occurred at noon, when charcoal cooking stoves were in use.



People, please stop using your hibachis in your rice paper houses.


September 1, 1932 -
No man could hold life so carelessly without falling down a manhole before he is done ...



New York City Mayor James Walker who had been the Mayor since being elected in 1926 was forced to resign following charges of graft and corruption in his administration on this date.


September 1, 1939 -
Germany, itching to start their Second World War Tour (the Foreign Minister of Germany, Joachim von Ribbentrop was seen running around Europe in the Tour T-Shirt, months earlier,) kicked it off at 5:30 AM on this date.



Hitler was so happy that day, he orders extermination of the mentally ill in Germany and Austria on this day as well.


September 1, 1939 -
Mary Jean Tomlin, Academy Award nominated, Tony, Emmy, and Grammy Award winning actress, comedian, writer and producer was born on this date.



One of her first "professional" gigs was as a waitress in Howard Johnson's on Broadway near Times Square. Her comments to customers and staff heard over the eatery's microphone attracted her first big-city audience.


September 1, 1961 -
TWA Flight 529, a Lockheed Constellation L-049 propliner, crashed shortly after takeoff from Midway Airport in Chicago, killing all 73 passengers and 5 crew members on board.



At the time, it was the deadliest single plane disaster in US history.


September 1, 1972 -
The anti-American and anti-Semitic (towards the end of his life) Bobby Fischer became the World Chess Champion in Reykjavik, Iceland, defeating Boris Spassky of the Soviet Union on this date.



He had become the youngest United States Junior Chess Champion at 13 years old followed by the US championship at age 14 and many consider him to be one of the greatest natural talent Chess Players ever.


September 1, 1995 -
After twelve years of building, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum opened in Cleveland, by the Lake Erie waterfront, on this date. The organization was established in 1983 by a group of leading figures in the music industry — including Atlantic Records cofounder Ahmet Ertegun and Jann Wenner, the publisher of Rolling Stone magazine.



Cleveland was the place where Alan Freed, the popular disk jockey of WJW-AM radio show, first popularized the term “Rock and Roll” on his pioneering Moondog Rock ‘n’ Roll Party radio show.



Since the cutting of the ribbon, The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum has hosted over eight million visitors and 50,000 of them were students and teachers.



And so it goes