This year marks the 35th anniversary of the signing of the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer following the 1985 Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer (it was at this meeting, that the famous 'hole in the ozone' above the Arctic was announced,) an important milestone in the protection of the ozone layer. This year's theme is supported by the slogan, “Montreal Protocol - Keeping us, our food and vaccines cool.”
(This will be on the test)
September 16, 1932 -
RKO released the B-film thriller, The Most Dangerous Game, which was shot alongside King Kong, using the same sets and much of the same talent in order to defray costs.
Most of the standing sets from King Kong were used in the making of this film, including the gate (which was eventually burned down in the "Burning of Atlanta" sequence of Gone with the Wind). This film and King Kong were shot concurrently though Kong was released later (possibly due to the special effects required for it).
September 16, 1953 -
The first movie filmed in the widescreen process CinemaScope, The Robe, premiered at the Roxy Theater in New York on this date.
Richard Burton hated making the film so much that he turned down a contract from 20th Century Fox. He was amazed to receive an Oscar nomination after critics had almost universally described his performance as "wooden". Still, Burton would make more films at Fox than at any other studio.
Sept 16, 1964 -
The first of Sergio Leone’s “Man with No Name” westerns, Fistful of Dollars, opened in Italy, three years before it would arrive in the United States. The term 'Spaghetti Westerns' was coined by Spanish journalist Alfonso Sánchez. As pointed out by one of our more astute bunkies, most 'Spaghetti Westerns' were shot in Spain.
This movie is a remake of Yojimbo, which itself was based on the as yet unadapted 1929 novel Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett. In fact, this movie's U.S. release was delayed when Yojimbo screenwriters Akira Kurosawa and Ryûzô Kikushima sued the filmmakers for breach of copyright. Kurosawa and Kikushima won, and as a result received 15% of this movie's worldwide gross and exclusive distribution rights for Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea. When Kurosawa released the film in Japan, he pointedly retitled it 'The Return of Yojimbo.' Kurosawa said he made more money off of this movie than he did on Yojimbo.
September 16, 1963 -
The original title for this series was Please Stand By, but because the Cuban Missile Crisis had happened less than a year earlier, executives thought it might make people fearful of an air raid. As a reference to this, when the 1995 revival of the series would cut to a commercial, the Control Voice said, "Please stand by."
September 16, 1965 -
NBC-TV finally put that little ole' wine drinker ... on the air when The Dean Martin Show premiered on this date.
Dean Martin wanted to be on TV but also wanted to be free to do movies and records; his contract required that he only show up to do his variety show one day per week (on Sundays). That's why he always seemed slightly out of step with the rest of the cast, who had rehearsed with Lee Hale standing in for Martin the day before. When Martin made a mistake he'd just laugh it off. The audience loved it.
September 16, 1967 -
The TV series Mannix, starring Mike Connors, premiered on CBS-TV on this date.
Mike Connors complained that this show was not very good at showing the consequences of violence. He said Joe Mannix would get thrown down a flight of stairs in one scene, and then appear without a scratch in the next.
September 16, 1969 -
The hardest working person in Hollywood had her series, The Debbie Reynolds Show, starring (besides her,) Don Chastain, Patricia Smith, Tom Bosley, and Debbie Thompson debuted, on NBC TV, on this date
Debbie Reynolds' contract with NBC guaranteed a two season run, promised her a starring role in a feature film to be produced by the network and would also have given her partial ownership of a future series in which she needn't star. But the adverse publicity resultant from Reynolds' vociferous objections to a cigarette ad appearing on the initial broadcast caused that sponsor to withdraw their advertising from the network and eventually resulted in a lawsuit which gave NBC the right to revoke the guaranteed second season, cancel the proposed feature film and void the entire deal. Reynolds' career never fully recovered, and at one point she found herself homeless and literally living in her car.
September 16, 1971 -
The Western series Bearcats! starring Rod Taylor and Dennis Cole, aired on CBS TV on this date.
Hollywood car builder/customizer George Barris made two replica 1914 Bearcats for the series. A period TV Guide article said they cost $25,000 for the pair, this at a time when a new Corvette was about $5,000. The cars were full scale metal bodied replicas mounted on custom frames and powered by Ford engines and transmissions (out of (then) late model pickups. For safety they featured four wheel brakes, which were not on a genuine Bearcat. The brass radiator is interchangeable with a genuine Stutz unit.
September 16, 1972 -
Actor Peter Bonerz who played Jerry the dentist learned how to direct on the set of this show and went on to become an award-winning director of other comedy series.
September 16, 1977 -
The eponymously named debut LP, Talking Heads: 77, was released on this date.
It has long been considered one of the best debut albums of the CBGB habitués
September 16, 1984 -
In case you you looking for the official date that the 80s began - Miami Vice premiered on NBC-TV on this date.
The series' commitment to the visual quality of every episode made it one of the most expensive shows to produce at the time. In fact, the cost to produce one episode of the show was greater than that of the entire annual budget of the Miami Police Department's Vice Unit.
September 16, 1993 -
Kelsey Grammer continued playing Dr. Fraiser Crane as Frasier, premiered on NBC-TV on this date.
David Hyde Pierce has said that, prior to this series, he had no strong interest in wine nor opera. Ironically, he was introduced to both by John Mahoney, whose Martin Crane character eschews anything cultured.
Another unimportant moment in history
Today in History:
September 16, 1498 -
Tomas de Torquemada, the notorious Grand Inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition, died in Avila, Spain on this date.
At precisely twelve noon on September 16, 1893 a cannon's boom unleashed the largest land rush America ever saw.
Carried by all kinds of transportation - horses, wagons, trains, bicycles or on foot - an estimated 100,000 raced to claim plots of land in an area of land in northern Oklahoma Territory known as the Cherokee Strip.
September 16, 1810 -
No tequila for you if you thought Mexican Independence Day was Cinco de Mayo.
Today is Independence Day in Mexico.
Mexico began its revolt against Spanish rule on this date. Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla issued "El Grito de Dolores" (Cry of Freedom), which claimed the end of Spanish rule.
September 16, 1908 -
General Motors Holding Company was formed in Flint, Mich., by William Durant on this date. (Within 12 days the company generated stocks that generated $12,000,000 cash.)
Psst, something else your teachers didn't tell you - Nazi armaments chief Albert Speer told a congressional investigator in 1974 that Germany could not have attempted its September 1939 Blitzkrieg of Poland without the performance-boosting additive technology provided by Alfred P. Sloan (long-time president, chairman, and CEO of General Motors Corporation.)
September 16, 1920 -
A horse-drawn carriage loaded with dynamite exploded in front of the J.P. Morgan and Company headquarters at 23 Wall Street in New York's financial district, on this date. 30 people were killed in the blast. More than 400 were injured.
Although the crime was never solved, it was believed to have been the work of the Anarchists, angry internationalists who believed the only good institutions were smoldering ruins. Anarchist Leon Czolgosz had assassinated President McKinley two decades earlier, on September 6, 1901, in Buffalo - an assassination that caused Teddy Roosevelt and the bully pulpit.
(Despite similarities in spelling, Anarchists should not be confused with Antichrists, Arachnids or Pimentos.)
It was perhaps no accident that the Morgan bombing took place on the 300th anniversary of the Mayflower's departure from England. Passengers were mostly members of a separatist Protestant congregation (Puritan Party Poopers) separating from the Church of England. They were from the English Midlands. They had gone at first to a village near Amsterdam, lived in Holland for ten years (generally bringing everybody down) and then decided to start their own society from scratch. They had two boats for the trip across the Atlantic: the Speedwell and the Mayflower. The Speedwell was leaky, and they spent time trying to repair it.
So when they finally set sail on September 16 (September 6th on the OC), they were way behind schedule. The journey took 66 days. It was rainy, it was cold, and the ocean was rough (They loved it). The boat was 90 feet long and carried 102 passengers. There were no separate cabins. They all had to live in the cargo area. But the Mayflower had previously been used to transport wine, and so the hold smelled wonderful (They hated it).
The Mayflower (and the Speedwell) carried its cargo of Puritan Party Poopers (Pilgrims) to Massachusetts, where they became the first tourists in history to visit Plymouth Rock.
Anarchists hate tourists.
September 16th 1959 -
A live television demonstration made the Xerox 914 the first successful photocopier. It took the Xerox machine around 25 seconds to make one copy – not too bad considering it was the first machine of it’s kind.
One little side note about the machine is that if too many copies were made during one period of time, it would overheat. As a result this overheating would lead to the machine catching fire. So that made photocopying your butt a risky business.
September 16, 1968 -
Presidential candidate Richard M. Nixon appears on the NBC comedy show Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In and asks Sock it to me? on this date.
George Schlatter, the creator of Laugh-In, unsuccessfully chased after Vice-President Hubert Humphrey to offer him the same opportunity to appear on the show. Humphrey was unable to make room in his schedule and always regretted it, stating that he believed it was one of the reasons he lost the election.
September 16, 1977 -
Maria Callas, American-born prima donna famed for her lyric soprano and fiery temperament, died in Paris on this date.
From October 1971 to March 1972, Callas gave a series of master classes to 25 students at The Juilliard School in New York, who auditioned for the opportunity to be critiqued by her. They were open to the public and the sold-out crowds included opera greats Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Tito Gobbi, Plácido Domingo, Grace Bumbry, and Bidu Sayão, actors Lillian Gish and Ben Gazzara, and director Franco Zeffirelli.
And so it goes
Anarchists, Antichrists, Arachnids or Pimentos, indeed.
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