Summer is over.

Time to remember what day of the week it is.

Heavy Sigh. Alright, dry your tears, wipe your nose, pull up your shorts and get going on with your day.  It's the start of the 2017-18 school year for the more than 1.1 million NYC public school students.  There are appx 292 days until the next summer vacation (about 180 days of school)


September 7, 1963 -
The first animated cartoon series to be imported from Japan, Astro Boy was broadcast on NBC-TV on this date.



The Japanese version originally didn't have a theme song, it wasn't until the success of the American theme song that they came up with one for the Japanese version.


September 7, 1967 -
The Flying Nun, starring Sally Field as a nun who finds that she can fly, debuted on ABC-TV on this date.



Sally Field has admitted that she disliked the scripts so much that she refused to read them. She would learn her lines right before shooting each scene by looking at the script supervisor's script.


September 7, 1968 –
The Banana Splits Adventure Hour (which only lasted 31 episodes,) starring Bingo, Drooper, Fleegle, and Snorky, premiered on NBC, on this date.



One of the composers employed to write the songs "performed" by the Banana Splits was future R&B legend Barry White.


September 7, 1979 -
ESPN, the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network, made its debut on cable TV.



The first program on the air, Sports Center lasted a half-hour, consisting mainly of videotaped highlights and following its conclusion that night, the network aired a slow-pitch softball game along with other programming, including wrestling and college soccer.


September 7, 2003 -
... My memory is not even what most people's is, much less what it oughta be for a discussion like this.



Warren Zevon, Grammy Award-winning American rock singer-songwriter and musician, died at age 56, on this date.


And now, a PSA directed at NYC students


Today in History:
September 7, 1533 -
Elizabeth I was born on on this date. She was crowned at 25 and remained on the throne for 44 years, which helps explain why she remained a virgin all her life.



She is best known for having ordered the destruction of the Spanish Armadillo and the invention of Shakespeare.


September 7, 1915 -
Former-cartoonist Johnny Gruelle received a patent his Raggedy Ann doll on this date.

Gruelle created Raggedy Ann for his daughter, Marcella, when she brought him an old hand-made rag doll and he drew a face on it. From his bookshelf, he pulled a book of poems by James Whitcomb Riley, and combined the names of two poems, "The Raggedy Man" and "Little Orphant Annie" He said, "Why don’t we call her Raggedy Ann?"


September 7, 1927 -



Philo T. Farnsworth (all of 21 years old) succeeded in transmitting an image through purely electronic means by using an image dissector on this date. He used an "image dissector" (the first television camera tube) to convert the image into a current, and an "image oscillite" (picture tube) to receive it.



When the simple image of a straight line was placed between the image dissector and a carbon arc lamp, it showed up clearly on the receiver in another room. His first tele-electronic image was transmitted on a glass slide at his laboratory at 202 Green Street in San Francisco.


It's the birthday of singer and songwriter Charles Hardin "Buddy" Holly, born in Lubbock, Texas, on this date in 1936. By the age of 13, Holly was playing what he called "Western Bop" at local clubs. He was 19 when an agent discovered him and signed him to a contract with Decca Records.



The following year, Holly returned to Lubbock and, with three friends, formed The Crickets, who then released That' ll Be The Day, which sold over a million copies. Buddy Holly's career was short: He died in February of 1959 in a plane crash in northern Iowa. Soon after, an English band that admired The Crickets decided to call themselves The Beatles.


September 7, 1940 -
Nazi Germany began its initial blitz on London during the World War II Battle of Britain on this date. The German Luftwaffe blitzed London for the first of 57 consecutive nights on this date. Nazi Germany launched the aerial bombing of London that Adolf Hitler believed would soften Britain for an invasion.



The invasion, "Operation Sea Lion," never materialized. The Luftwaffe lost 41 bombers over England. The blitz only strengthened Britain's resistance. The defense of London was for the Royal Air Force what Churchill called "their finest hour."


September 7, 1978 -
Keith Moon, drummer for The Who, died in his London residence from an overdose of chlormethiazole edisylate, a prescription drug used to treat alcoholism.



Moon's flat, #12 Curzon Place, was the same spot where Cass Elliot died of a heart attack in 1974 (and not from choking on a ham sandwich, smarty pants.)


September 7, 1978 -
Walking to the bus stop, BBC journalist Georgi Markov suddenly felt a sharp pain in his right calf. A KGB assassin had jabbed him with an umbrella tip, rigged to inject a tiny platinum sphere. The pellet is laden with ricin, a castor-based toxin with no known antidote. Markov died in the hospital four agonizing days later.



Oh those wacky KGB agents.


September 7, 1996 -
Standing up through the open sunroof of a BMW 750 sedan, rap artist Tupac Shakur was talking to some women at a Las Vegas street intersection when a white Cadillac pulls alongside. Gunfire erupts, and Shakur was shot four times. He died in the hospital a week later.



Although quite dead, or so we are led to believe, he still has quite impression record sales.



And so it goes


Before you go - Puddles' Tuesday release was a cover version of a Tom Waits' song but I didn't recognize it immediately -



Puddles' cover is good but I really enjoyed the Tom Waits version



1232