Dance like there's nobody watching

Ellie Cole of Eastleigh, England is the coolest woman in the world (she does not know that she is being filmed.)



You go girl!


September 18, 1951 -
20th Century Fox premiered the science fiction classic, The Day the Earth Stood Still, directed by Robert Wise and starring Michael Rennie and Patricia Neal, in New York, on this date.



Patricia Neal has admitted in interviews that she was completely unaware during the filming that the film would turn out so well and become one of the great science-fiction classics of all time. She assumed it would be just another one of the then-current and rather trashy flying saucer films that were popular at the time, and she found it difficult to keep a straight face while saying her lines.


September 18, 1963-
The show that taught elderly men, twin cousins might be lured into immoral acts with the purchase of grilled sausages - The Patty Duke Show, premiered on ABC-TV on this date.



Although the series was still doing well enough in the Nielsen ratings, ABC decided not to renew it for a fourth season. ABC wanted all of their black & white shows to switch color production. United Artists wanted more money to make the change. The network decided it would be more cost-effective to develop a new color show instead.


September 18, 1964 -
The most normal family's ever presented on US televsion, The Addams Family premiered on ABC-TV on this date.



Wednesday's pet, a black widow spider, was named Homer. Her headless doll was named Marie Antoinette.  Pugsley's pet Octopus was named Aristotle.  Morticia's man-eating plant was named Cleopatra.


September 18, 1965 -
Kleenex stock rose precipitously as I Dream of Jeannie premiered on this date.



The fancy antique bottle in which Jeannie called home was actually a decorative Jim Beam liquor decanter, which originally contained "Beam's Choice" Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whisky. The bottle had been decorated and painted with gold leaf by the show's art department.


September 18, 1965 -
Mel Brooks and Buck Henry started making the world safe from KAOS when Get Smart premiered on NBC-TV on this date.



Agent 99's real name is never revealed, not even when she marries Smart, after which was is occasionally referred to as Mrs. Smart. In one episode her name was said to be Susan Hilton, however she later recanted and claimed it was an alias.


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



Barbra Streisand was, at the time of the film's release, a voting member of AMPAS. When she found she was nominated, she, like any member nominated, voted for herself. If she hadn't, she wouldn't have tied with Katharine Hepburn for the year's Best Actress Oscar.


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



The show was videotaped instead of filmed because it was cheaper to get the rights to rock songs for a taped show than for a filmed show.


September 18, 1987 -
Pet bunnies felt a cold breeze on their neck when Fatal Attractions, starring Michael Douglas and Glenn Close, opened on this date.



When Glenn Close finally secured the part of Alex Forrest, one of the first things she did was to take the script to two different psychiatrists. She asked them, "Is this behavior possible and if it is, why?" The two psychiatrists who reviewed the script at Glenn Close's request both came to the same conclusion: Alex Forrest's behavior was, in its own way, classic behavior. Their diagnosis was that Alex had been molested and sexually tortured for an extended period of time while she was a child. As a result, she would naturally lash out at anyone who found her desirable.


September 18, 1994 -
Ken Burn's series about America's favorite past time Baseball, premiered on PBS on this date.



When discussing Yogi Berra's many interesting quotes, a friend of Yogi's is alleged to have said, "Hey, Yogi, what do you know?" Yogi allegedly replied, "I don't even suspect anything." This exchange is actually taken from an exchange Charles Chaplin had in a Parisienne café in Monsieur Verdoux.



Today in History:
Once again, I must ask all children and those with delicate natures to turn away from their computer screens as we discuss the bizarre deviant sexual behavior on the part of our founding fathers:

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."

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, 1851 -
The New York Times published its first edition on this date. The newspaper, initially called the New-York Daily Times, was founded by Henry Jarvis Raymond, a politician and journalist.

It cost one penny per copy and was published six days per week, changing to seven days 1861. Its name was changed to the New York Times in 1857.


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)on this date. 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, for the past 31 year, I have worked in an office in one of the building that bears his name.


September 18, 1970 -
Jimi Hendrix died in his sleep, in London, from of a barbiturate overdose when chunks of his vomited tuna sandwich wound up in his lungs, causing him to choke, on this date. He was 27 years old.



At least his family could take comfort that he did not choke on someone else's vomit.

Once again I  must remind you that Cass Elliot 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, 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 was killed in his sleep the previous night in the guest cottage of a friend's Long Island estate. His body was discovered on this date. The professional tennis player died 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