When you're slapped, you'll take it and like it.

October 3, 1941 -
John Huston's first directorial effort, The Maltese Falcon, premiered in NYC on this date.



John Huston had Mary Astor run around the set several times before each of her scenes in order to give her a breathless, nervous appearance on screen.


October 3, 1953 -
The final installment of the Looney Tunes "Hunting Trilogy", Duck! Rabbit, Duck!, premiered on this date.



Bugs Bunny stuck out four signs to lead Elmer Fudd to shoot Daffy Duck. In order they are:

1st GOAT SEASON OPEN;

2nd, DIRTY SKUNK SEASON;

3rd, PIGEON SEASON;

4th and last, MONGOOSE SEASON.


October 3, 1954 -
Another in the series of alcoholic actors playing model Dads, Father Knows Best, starring Robert Young premiered on this date.



Series star Lauren Chapin, who played the youngest daughter Kathy said she found out the show was canceled for good when she reported to work and the guard would not let her into the studio. She later learned that the show's cancellation was due to the fact that Elinor Donahue, now married, was pregnant, and Billy Gray's marijuana use.


October 3, 1955 -
Hey kids, remember Captain Kangaroo. Well, his show premiered on this date.



Most network shows were broadcast in color by the mid 1960s. CBS did not convert the Captain's early morning program to color until 1967.


October 3, 1955 -
If today wasn't special enough, The Mickey Mouse Club also premiered on this date.



Although the show was filmed and broadcast in black and white, all of the animated segments - the opening theme, Mickey's introductions and farewells, the Jiminy Cricket shorts, etc. - were filmed in color.



Annette Funicello has stated in interviews that, upon being cast for the show, she told Walt Disney that she wanted to change her last name to one that sounded more "American". To his credit, Disney told her to keep her original last name because, "once someone remembers it, they will never be able to forget it".


October 3, 1955 -
Considered one of his 5 'lost films' (held up for years from re-release), Alfred Hitchcock's The Trouble with Harry, premiered on this date. This was Shirley MacLaine's film debut.



Location filming in Vermont was hampered by heavy rainfall. Many exterior scenes were actually filmed on sets constructed in a local high school gymnasium. Much of the dialogue recorded there was inaudible due to the rainfall on the tin roof, so much post-recording was necessary.


Octeber 3, 1960 -
Tony Richardson’s biting commentary of the collapsing British Empire, The Entertainer, starring Laurence Olivier, Albert Finney, Alan Bates, and Joan Plowright, opened in NYC on the date.



Roger Livesey plays Laurence Olivier's father in the film, yet is less than one year older than Olivier - Olivier was born in May 1907 while Livesey was born in June 1906.


October 3, 1960 -
Let grab down our fishin' poles and head down to the fishin' hole, The Andy Griffith Show premiered on this date.



Andy Griffith and Frances Bavier did not get along during the series. According to Griffith and Howard Morris, Bavier was very extremely sensitive and resented her role of Aunt Bee. In 1972, Griffith and Ron Howard paid her a visit at her home in Siler City, North Carolina but she turned them away. When Bavier was terminally ill in 1989, she contacted Griffith to say that she regretted that they did not get along better.


October 3, 1961 -
The Dick Van Dyke Show premiered on this date. The show wasn't an immediate success but became a hit.



The Dick Van Dyke Show was the last show to have its entire run filmed in black and white. The show was due to be shot in color after the fifth season, but never happened because of the cast and producers' decision to end the show after five seasons.


October 3, 1977 -
Elvis Presley's third and final television special, Elvis in Concert, was filmed by CBS in June 1977 and aired on this date, two months after Elvis' death. (This is the heavy, sweaty St. Elvis; the Elvis who died for our sins. Once again, those with afflictions, place one hand upon the afflicted area, be it yours or your neighbors, and the other on the screen. Soon, feel the soothing balm of his burning love wash over you.)



The telecast was mostly an edited version of two concert performances from Elvis' final tour. "My Way" was performed on a 3rd concert date on this tour. It became a best selling single following his death and was added as the last number before "Can't Help Falling In Love".


October 3, 1986 -
The seventh collaboration between Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas, Tough Guys was released on this date.



Filming was very difficult for the 71-year-old Burt Lancaster, as he had undergone a quadruple heart bypass operation two years earlier. There was some question as to whether he would even get insurance for this film.


Today in History:
October 3, 1283 -
Dafydd ap Gruffudd was having a bad day. Besides having an unpronounceable name, he had gotten on the wrong side of King Edward I of England, for wanting to gain Welsh independence. On September 30th, Dafydd ap Gruffudd, Prince of Wales, was condemned to death, the first person known to have been tried and executed for what from this time onwards would be described as high treason against the King. Edward ensured that Dafydd's death was to be slow and agonizing, and also historic; he became the first person in recorded history to have been hanged, drawn and quartered.

Dafydd was dragged through the streets of Shrewsbury at a horse's tail then hanged alive, revived, then disemboweled and his entrails burned before him for 'his sacrilege in committing his crimes in the week of Christ's passion,' and then his body cut into four quarters 'for plotting the king's death'.

Apparently, Edward was quite pissed off.


October 3, 1678 -
The greatest build out was finally completed on this day in history - the Taj Mahal.



Imagine what the contractor got to hide in his final bill with 20,000 laborers, master builders, masons, calligraphers, etc., working 22 years for the grieving Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan to complete the great mausoleum for the shah's beloved wife. Imagine whatt Trump would do with the bill.


October 3, 1728 -
Charles G Chevalier d'Eon de Beaumont, French duelist, diplomat, spy, soldier, Freemason and transvestite, was born on this date.

http://www.historytoday.com/sites/default/files/eon.jpg
His/ her story is far to complicated to synopsize here, read about the Chevalier for yourself.


October 3, 1863 -
Sarah J. Hale, editor and founder of the Ladies' Magazine, continually annoyed President Lincoln until he declared the last Thursday in November as Thanksgiving Day on this date.



George Washington had previously declared a Day of Thanksgiving on November 26 on this date.

But we'll talk more about Thanksgiving in November.


October 3, 1899 -
Tired parlour maids everywhere rejoiced,

J S Thurman patented the motor-driven vacuum cleaner on this date.


October 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.


October 3, 1922 -
Rebecca L. Felton became the first female senator in the US when she is appointed to the US Senate by Governor Thomas Hardwick of Georgia, on this date.

The appointment takes place when Congress had already adjourned, so Felton has no opportunity to serve. When the new session starts, Senator-elect Walter George, who was to replace her, will gallantly agree to claim his seat a day late, to allow the eighty-seven years old Felton to actually serve one day. Her tenure was the shortest for any Senator in history. She was also the last former slaveowner to serve in the U.S. Senate.


October 3, 1952 -
The United Kingdom successfully tests their first atomic bomb, Operation Hurricane, four hundred yards off the coast of the Monte Bello Islands off the Australian coast, becoming the world’s third nuclear power on this date. In order to test the potential threat of a bomb smuggled in a ship, the bomb was detonated inside the hull of the frigate HMS Plym.



Despite the explosion beginning in a ship and nine feet below the water line, the explosion created a crater twenty feet deep and a thousand feet across.

Oops, radiation still lingers around the test site like a bad chili and broccoli dinner farts.


October 3, 1962 -
Hey, Wally, are you a turtle? (Wally correctly answers the question)

Walter M. "Wally" Schirra, Jr. rode his one-man Mercury spacecraft atop an Atlas rocket into orbit on this date. Schirra completed six earth orbits lasting nine hours and 13 minutes.



The nine-hour mission on the Sigma 7 capsule was the longest to date for a U.S. flight and set the stage for the day-long final mission of the Mercury Program that followed.


October 3, 1964 -
According to noted food historian, Calvin Trilling, the first buffalo wings were served on this date. The wings were reported to have first been made in Buffalo, New York, by the Bellissimo family at the Anchor Bar.



They were served with blue cheese dressing and given away for free. The bar now sells the wings nationwide through its website.


October 3, 1990 -
East and West Germany were officially reunited on this date. The reunification of this once great nation was recognized as a clear sign that the Cold War was coming to an end, and was therefore celebrated not only in Germany, but throughout the world



- excepting certain corridors of France, Poland, and the Czech Republic, where the exuberance was strangely muted.


On October 3, 1992, Sinead O'Connor was the musical guest on Saturday Night Live. At the end of her a capella performance of the Bob Marley song War, Sinead produced a copy of a photograph of Pope John Paul II, which she ripped into pieces.



Time has proven Sinead dead right about her protest.



And so it goes.