Then immediately go back to your usually ornery self.
February 17, 1965 -
You are going to be a star.
Joan Rivers made her first guest appearances on The Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson on NBC-TV on this date.
February 17, 1967 -
The Beatles released Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields Forever on this date.
These songs were intended for Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, but Capitol Records decided to release the two songs as a single, partly to regain popularity from John Lennon's "The Beatles are bigger than Jesus" comment.
February 17, 1971 -
On this day, Boston native James Taylor made his primetime television debut on the Johnny Cash Show.
Other guest on the show that evening included Neil Young and Linda Ronstadt.
February 17, 1984 -
The Herb Ross musical drama Footloose, starring Kevin Bacon (the guy everyone is six degrees seperated from,) Lori Singer, Dianne Wiest, and John Lithgow, premiered in the US on this date.
Kevin Bacon was offered the leading role for the Stephen King movie Christine, at the same time that he was asked to do a screen test for Footloose. The producers had to convince Bacon that turning down a sure role in Christine for a part he might not even get in Footloose was the wiser choice. The producers told him that if he got the part for Footloose, the role would make him a star. Thirty seconds into the screen test, Bacon was offered the part. And then he had to fight to keep it because producer Shari Lansing said he wasn't sexy enough to headline a youth oriented movie like this. It took Herbert Ross weeks of pleading with her that he WAS sexy; and it took various new screen tests to change her mind. But it did work and the rest is history.
February 17, 1989 -
The cinematic masterpiece Bill And Ted's Excellent Adventure starring Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter opened in theaters on this date.
In the film, Bill and Ted claim that they need Edward Van Halen in their band to make it better. After the film was released, he jokingly said he would have joined their band if they had asked.
February 17, 1990 -
We are all not worthy - Aerosmith appeared on Saturday Night Live on this date.
They performed the Wayne's World theme song while appearing in the skit as themselves.
February 17, 1995 -
Paramount Pictures heard America cry out that they needed to see The Brady Bunch Movie, directed by Betty Thomas and starring Shelley Long, Gary Cole and Michael McKean and released it in the US on this date.
As he heads off to his business meeting, Carol Brady tells her husband, Mike, to "Go get 'em, Tiger", and then wonders to herself "Tiger, Tiger: what ever happened to that dog?" This is one of many inside jokes about the show. Tiger was the name of the Bradys' dog in the TV series. But, after the first two seasons, the dog simply disappeared without explanation. The original Tiger was actually killed by a truck off-set during the first season. A trained look-a-like dog was brought in to replace him but he had a poor temperament and could not remain focused. Tiger was written off the show after appearing in just eleven episodes and no mention was ever made of what happened to him. However, his dog house was left in the back yard for the remainder of the series.
February 17, 1997 -
Mike Nesmith directed himself and the other original Monkees in Hey, Hey, It's the Monkees, a one-hour comedy special which premiered on ABC, on this date.
The special assumes the Monkees have been living in their beach house all the years since the series ended and have continued having adventures. This one is episode number 781 - A Lizard Sunning Itself On A Rock.
Another moment of edifying culture
Today in History:
February 17, 1600 -
Roman philosopher and mathematician Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake at Campo di Fiore in Rome, likely because of his advocating the theory that the Earth revolves around the Sun.
His death at the hands of Roman Inquisition is thought to have convinced Galileo to recant his own theory of a moving Earth. The people living around the Palatine Hills always expected the Roman Inquisition.
Celebrated French dramatist and comedian Moliere collapsed on stage and died on February 17, 1673. It is said that he was wearing green, and because of that, there is a superstition that green brings bad luck to actors. As an actor, he was not allowed by the laws of the time to be buried in the sacred ground of a cemetery.
His wife Armande asked the King Louis XIV to allow a "normal" funeral celebrated at night. The king agreed, and Moliere was buried in a part of the cemetery reserved for unbaptized infants. In some accounts of his death, it is said that over 800 people attended his "secret" funeral.
February 17, 1869 –
The dream that changed the world - Dmitri Mendeleev began creating what we now call The Periodic Table.
On the night of February 16, 1869, it is said, Dmitri Mendeleev, Russian Chemist and owner of the wildest beard east of Vienna, had a dream in which he saw almost all of the 65 known elements arrayed in a grand table. The following morning, he set to work organizing the elements on blank cards. He carried on for three days and nights, continually arranging and rearranging the cards in various sequences until he noticed a pattern in the elements in order of increasing atomic mass; their properties were repeated. Because the properties repeated themselves regularly, or periodically, on his chart, the system became known as the periodic table.
A bomb exploded in the dining room of St. Petersburg's Winter Palace on February 17, 1880. Tsar Alexander II survived. Being late for supper, the Tsar was not harmed, although 67 other people were killed or wounded. The dining room floor was also heavily damaged.
February 17, 1904 -
The original two-act version Madama Butterfly by Giacomo Puccini, premiered on this date.
It did not go so well, lasting just one performance. One critic refereed to the performance as a "diabetic opera, the result of an automobile accident." Puccini revised the opera, splitting the second act into two acts and making other changes. On May 28, 1904, the new version was performed in Brescia and was a huge success.
February 17, 1933 -
The first issue of the weekly news magazine, Newsweek, was published on this date.
February 17, 1958 -
Pope Pius XII declared Saint Clare of Assisi (1193 - 1253), the patron saint of television, on this date.
February 17, 1994 -
The decomposing corpse of Zviad Gamsakhurdia, first president of the Republic of Georgia, was exhumed from a temporary grave in Djikhaskari on this date. His wife refused an autopsy, but western journalists noted a bullet wound in the side of Zviad's head. Officially listed as suicide, the wife also claims he was murdered. Another government minister oddly states the death was by cancer with the head shot administered post-mortem.
Avoid getting cancer, if at all possible.
And so it goes
I forgot to give you the answer to the riddle from Monday - Chopsticks
Chopsticks indeed
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