Saturday, September 18, 2010

Don't hesitate to contact me if you can't remember the things you should be atoning for

It's Yom Kippur today. If you're celebrating it today (strange choice of words,) you shouldn't be reading this today. May your fast pass easily.

Hopefully your sins are so few that you really can cast them upon the water.


September 18, 1963-
The show that taught elder men that twin cousins might be lured into immoral acts, The Patty Duke Show, premiered on ABC TV on this date..



For most of the scenes featuring both Patty and Cathy, actress Rita Walter played "the back of either Patty's or Cathy's head", as appropriate. She can also be seen in several episodes as a background character.


September 18, 1964 -
Gomez first kissed Morticia's hand as The Addams Family premiered on ABC TV on this date.



Thing was usually a right hand. Ted Cassidy (Lurch) occasionally used his left hand just to see if anybody would notice. Thing also had an arm, which was seen when it reached outside for something while in its box.


September 18, 1965 -
TV executives nervously worried if one belly button would sink a network as I Dream of Jeannie premiered on this date.



Actor Larry Hagman was apparently notoriously difficult to work with, to the point where the producers seriously considered getting rid of him and replacing him with another actor. Darren McGavin was at the top of the list for Hagman's replacement. They even worked out a story where Tony lost Jeannie and McGavin found her, but the studio execs loved Hagman and wouldn't consider a change.


September 18, 1965 -
Mel Brooks and Buck Henry's send up of the spy genie, Get Smart premiered on NBC-TV on this date.



CONTROL and KAOS were supposed to be acronyms, but Mel Brooks and Buck Henry never came up with anything for them to stand for.
.

September 18, 1968 -
The film musical Funny Girl with Barbra Streisand premiered in NYC.



Frank Sinatra was seriously considered for the role of Nicky Arnstein but Barbra Streisand vetoed this as she didn't like him.


September 18, 1978 -
We first started living on the air in Cincinnati when WKRP in Cincinnati, premiered on CBS-TV on this date.



If you look closely you can make out the names Johnny Fever used on air on the side of his coffee cup. The names read: Johnny Duke, Johnny Style, Johnny Cool, Johnny Sunshine, and of course Johnny Fever.


Today in History:
On September 18, 1793, President George Washington laid the foundation stone for the U.S. Capitol. According to numerous sources, President Washington "laid the stone in a Masonic ceremony... preceded by a parade and followed by celebration and feasting."

(I am always troubled by this deviant sexual behavior on the part of our founding father. I am surprised by our young nation's apparent celebration of his bizarre geological fetish. I hopefully wish the Tea Party take up the endorsement of a Constitutional Amendment prohibiting federal representatives from engaging in sexual relations with rocks.)

The 1792 competition for the design of the Capitol had been won by an amateur architect, and the building was therefore burned by the British before it could be completed. Congress had moved into the building on November 22, 1800, but managed to escape the fire.


September 18, 1932 -
24-year-old starlet Peg Entwhistle dives head first from the letter "H" of the HOLLYWOODLAND sign in Los Angeles. She is the first person to commit suicide at the landmark.



Her body was discovered in the brush at the base of the hill two days later, and pronounced dead. When police examined her belongings, in her purse they found a note that read:

"I am afraid, I am a coward. I am sorry for everything. If I had done this a long time ago, it would have saved a lot of pain. P.E."



Two days later, in an ironic twist, Entwistle's uncle opened a letter addressed to her from the Beverly Hills Playhouse; it was mailed the day before she jumped. In it was an offer for her to play the lead role in a stage production—in which her character would commit suicide in the final act.


September 18, 1961 -
Dag Hammarskjold, Secretary-General of the UN, was killed in a plane crash in Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia). He was flying to negotiate a cease-fire in the Congo.


Hammarskjold was the son of a former Swedish prime minister. In 1953, he was elected to the top UN post and in 1957 was reelected. During his second term, he initiated and directed the United Nation's vigorous role in the Belgian Congo.

Strangely enough, I have an office in one of the building that bears his name.


September 18, 1970 -
A sleeping Jimi Hendrix dies in London from of a barbituate overdose when chunks of vomited tuna sandwich wind up in his lungs, causing him to choke. He was 27 years old.



Kids, if you plan on taking barbituates before bedtime, NO late night snacks.

And remember Mama Cass did not choke to death on a ham sandwich. It is an urban myth born out of a quickly discarded speculation by the coroner, who noted a part eaten ham sandwich and figured she may have choked to death. In fact, she died of heart failure.

So cut it out.


September 18, 1979 -
NBC television premiered The Misadventures of Sheriff Lobo, a spinoff of BJ and the Bear on this date.



Claude Akins stars as Elroy P. Lobo, the slightly corrupt sheriff of Orly County, who faces his first misadventure in "The Day That Shark Ate Lobo."

Don't you wish you were at that pitch meeting.


September 18, 1992 -
Two weeks after being outed in the New York weekly QW, attorney John Schlafly admits in an interview with the San Francisco Examiner that he enjoys the love that dare not speak it's name. This causes a certain amount of consternation for his mother, archconservative gay rights opponent Phyllis Schlafly.

The Schlafly family have yet to fulfill their obligation as good Christians to present their rebellious son to the town elders and have him stoned to death as instructed in Deut. 21:18.


September 18, 1994 -
Vitas Gerulaitis is killed in his sleep in the guest cottage of a friend's Long Island estate. The professional tennis player dies from carbon monoxide poisoning, caused by a faulty propane swimming-pool heater.

How many more people must die from killer swimming pools?



And so it goes

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