Did you start your day off right?

Other things to occupy your mind with other than COVID-19 - Breakfast is NOT the most important meal of the day.



The only reason this became a popular idea, is because a company called General Foods used this as a marketing campaign in 1944. They coined the phrase to sell more of their cereal Grape Nuts. The campaign stated that “Nutrition experts say breakfast is the most important meal of the day.”


July 8, 1932 -
W.C. Fields' very funny political satire, Million Dollar Legs, opened on this date.



Writer Joseph L. Mankiewicz was inspired to write this film by the wild events of the 1928 Olympic games held in Amsterdam, particularly by an Albanian pole-vaulter who took to the field wearing a pair of goatskin shorts.


July 8, 1932 -
Tod Browning's groundbreaking shockfest Freaks, featuring genuine carnival sideshow performers, premieres at the Rialto theater in New York on this date.



Although production chief Irving Thalberg decided to re-cut the picture immediately after the disastrous test screening, he could not cancel the world premiere on January 28, 1932 at the 3,000-seat Fox Theatre in San Diego. This is the only venue at which the uncut version of Freaks is known to have played. Ironically, the unexpurgated Freaks was a major box-office success. Crowds lined up around the block to see the picture, which broke the theatre's house record. By the end of the run, word had spread that Freaks was about to be butchered, and the theatre advertised, "Your last opportunity to see 'Freaks' in its uncensored form!"


July 8, 1958 -
The center of the Hollywood Universe was born today in 1958.



Remember even you are only a few degrees away from Kevin Bacon.


July 8, 1964 -
Probably Jerry Lewis' best directorial effort, The Patsy, premiered on this date. (This was Peter Lorre's last film; he died four days after completing his role. Lorre hated the experience and death must have seems a welcome release.)



This is the only Jerry Lewis solo film that mentions Dean Martin by name. Ed Sullivan includes Martin & Lewis in a list of famous acts that made their debuts on his show.


July 8, 1966 -
Universal Studios released Frankenstein Conquers the World (Furankenshutain tai chitei kaijû Baragon - Frankenstein vs. Baragon) directed by Ishiro Honda and starring Nick Adams, Tadao Takashima and Kumi Mizuno, to U.S. theaters on this date.



The film's story came from an unused 1962 screenplay titled King Kong vs. Frankenstein, written by King Kong special effects technician Willis H. O'Brien. In the story, Dr. Frankenstein's grandson created a 20 ft. monster from the remains of animals, and that monster ended up fighting Kong. The story never got past the screenplay, thought concept art depicting Kong and the Frankenstein monster exist.


Another failed ACME product


Today in History:
July 8, 1115 -
Peter the Hermit died on this date. Peter is notable for his invention of The Crusades and never bathing. He whipped up support for the first Crusade as an attempt to dislodge the Seljuk Turks from Jerusalem: over three hundred thousand Christians perished in less than a year, during which they destroyed hundreds of villages throughout Europe and Asia Minor and killed tens of thousands of European Jews and fellow Christians on their way to a holy land they never reached.



As a result of this astonishing success, the Crusades were serialized and ran for several centuries.


July 8, 1776 -
In Philadelphia, the Liberty Bell rang out from the tower of the Pennsylvania State House (now known as Independence Hall), summoning citizens to the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence, by Colonel John Nixon on this date.



The bell had the inscription: proclaim liberty throughout all the land onto all the inhabitants thereof.

An interesting aside - On July 8, 1835, the Liberty Bell cracked (again) while being tolled during the funeral procession for Chief Justice John Marshall. It was never rung again.


July 8, 1800 -
The first smallpox vaccine was administered on this date in the U.S. Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse (no relation to Price) of Massachusetts introduced Edward Jenner's method of vaccination of cowpox serum to his five-year-old son Daniel and a household servant.

Neither ever contracted smallpox and the vaccination was determined to have been an udder success.


July 8, 1822 -
The Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, a month shy of his 30th birthday, along with two others, died on this date, when his boat went down in a sudden storm off the coast of the Gulf of Spezia.

It was ten days before the bodies were found, and by then Shelley was identifiable only by the clothes he wore, and the book of Keats’ poems he had in his pocket. His face and hands had been completely eaten away.

Maybe I shouldn't have shared that part of the story.


July 8, 1856 -
The crank-operated machine gun (US patent #15,315) was patented on this date by C.E. Barnes of Lowell, Massachusetts, and the revolving gun turret was invented exactly six years later by Theodore Timby.

Both inventions enabled mankind to kill itself off with unprecedented ease and efficiency, thereby launching the modern era.


July 8th was a Sunday in 1881, so when a hot young man entered Edward Berner's drugstore in Two Rivers, Wisconsin, and ordered an ice-cream soda, his request was denied. Ice-cream sodas could not be served on the Sabbath owing to the ancient Mosaic injunction against them.

The hot young man pleaded his case so eloquently, however, that Berner felt sympathetic and came up with a compromise: he plopped a scoop of ice-cream into a dish and poured the chocolate-flavored syrup directly over it.



This religious dodge quickly became popular and came to be known as the Ice Cream Sundae. (The spelling was later changed to conceal the heretical origins of the dish.)



Since that glorious day, hundreds of millions of Americans have consigned themselves to Hell.


July 8, 1969 -
The U.S. Patent Office issued a patent for the game Twister. (Yes smartpants, the game came out in 1966 but the patent wasn't issued until this date.)

Remember kids, if you are going to play nude Crisco Twister - always use protection.


July 8, 1976 -
Former President Richard M. Nixon was disbarred by the New York Bar Association. Nixon attempted to resign voluntarily, as he had from the California and U.S. Supreme Court bars, but New York refused to accept his resignation unless he acknowledged that he had obstructed justice during the Watergate coverup.

Bad, Nixon, Bad.


July 8, 1999 -
The last electric chair execution in Florida took place, when Allen Lee Davis ordered his last meal and walked his last mile on this date. His execution drew particular attention because his nose bled during the botched execution and he was burned on his leg, groin and head.

The US Supreme Court ruled death by electric chair was cruel and unusual punishment in 2008, ending the practice, which by then was only used in Nebraska.

(If you sick puppies want to - there are photos on the intraweb of Mr. Davis after his less than professional execution - you have to search them out yourselves.)



And so it goes.


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