Remember when you assume

November 13, 1970
On November 13, Felix Unger was asked to remove himself from his place of residence; that request came from his wife. Deep down, he knew she was right, but he also knew that some day he would return to her. With nowhere else to go, he appeared at the home of his friend, Oscar Madison. - Announcer, The Odd Couple



Felix moves in with Oscar and so the story of the Odd Couple begins on this date.


November 13, 1940 -
Walt Disney's third animated film Fantasia, opened in New York on this date.



The filming of the final Ave Maria sequence was plagued by mishaps. To achieve the effect of moving through the scene, several panes of painted glass were used. The whole setup was over 200 feet long and had to be redone three times. The first time the wrong lens was placed on the camera, and the subsequent film showed not only the artwork but the workers scurrying around it. The second time around an earthquake struck the studio, and the shot was once again scrapped. The next morning the shot was redone, the film was shipped to the lab, processed and couriered to the premiere in New York where it was spliced into the final print with only four hours to spare.


November 13, 1954 -
Looney Tunes first 3D cartoon, Lumber Jack Rabbit, starring Bugs Bunny, premiered on this date.



Chuck Jones left Warner Brothers for four months over the production of this cartoon, which he felt was unsatisfactory. He went to Disney for those months, and worked on Sleeping Beauty, but eventually realized that, although he thought Walt Disney was an excellent producer, the company was not right for him. A famous meeting occurred when Disney told Jones "We can work out something for you" and Jones responded "Well, you have one job here that I want, and that's yours!" to which Disney said "I'm sorry, it's filled." It was the only time Jones left the company in a career that lasted over 25 years, until Jones was "let go" with the animation department in 1962.


November 13, 1971 -
Steven Spielberg's first full- length film, Duel, starring Dennis Weaver, debuted on ABC-TV on this date.



During the chase, a parked sedan resembling a squad car is seen, briefly raising Dennis Weaver's hopes, but it turns out to be a service car for a pest exterminator named Grebleips... "Spielberg" in reverse.


November 13, 1975 -
Morris Albert's song Feelings went gold on this date.



In 1987, Morris Albert was found guilty of plagiarism, with a jury finding that this borrowed heavily from a French song from 1956 called Pour Toi.



You can blame me later for this ear worm


November 11, 1976 -
Rod Stewart's Tonight's The Night, with some French cooing by his girlfriend Britt Ekland, hits #1 in America for the first of eight weeks.



The phrase "sex rock" entered the lexicon in 1975, thanks to an article in Time magazine about the rise of songs like this one that are clearly about a seduction. With the genre defined, various groups started protesting it, including Jesse Jackson's Operation PUSH (People United to Save Humanity). This song was a target and used as an example of one that was loosening the morals of young people.


November 13, 1987 -
Sonny & Cher were guests on NBC's Late Night with David Letterman and after a short interview the pair agreed to sing I Got You Babe for a delighted audience, on this date.



Clearly extremely comfortable with one another, the divorced pair happily sang together and couldn't hide their glee and they smiled broadly to one another during the entirely of the song.


November 13, 1991 -
The first animated film to receive an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture, Disney’s Beauty and the Beast premiered in Hollywood on this date.



Angela Lansbury (Mrs. Potts) thought that another character would be better suited to sing the ballad, "Beauty and the Beast." Directors Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise asked her to make at least one recording to have for a back-up; that one recording ended up in the movie.


November 13, 1993 -
Kate Bush's musical short film The Line, The Cross & The Curve (an extended music video featuring songs from Bush's album The Red Shoes) starring Kate Bush, Miranda Richardson and choreographer Lindsay Kemp, premiered at the London Film Festival on this date.



The film was released direct-to-video in most areas and was only a modest success. Soon after its release, Bush effectively dropped out of the public eye until her eighth studio album Aerial was released in November 2005.


another book from the back shelves of the ACME Library


Today in History:
While it is a particularly uneventful day in history, let us opine these words:

"The students are beyond control and their behavior is disgraceful. They come blustering into the lecture-rooms like a troop of maniacs and upset the orderly arrangements which the master has made in the interest of his pupils. Their recklessness is unbelievable and they often commit outrages which ought to be punishable by law, were it not that custom protects them."



People concerned about the pace of change in human affairs can find solace in knowing that these familiar sentiments were expressed about sixteen centuries ago by St. Augustine, who was born on November 13, 354 AD.



Like many other theological luminaries, Augustine began life as a debauched young man who sought his pleasures in wine, women, and song. Augustine admitted in his autobiography Confessions, that as a boy he "told lies to my tutors, my masters and my parents all for the love of games and the craving for stage shows." Eventually he became old and cranky and declared his youth wasted.



All of the things that occurred during the drunken orgies of his youth recounted in his Confessions do not hold a candle to the crap coming out of Marjorie Taylor Greene mouth.


November 13, 1789 -
Benjamin Franklin wrote a letter to a friend in which he said, "In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes."

I would include, once again, "please accept the results of an election when they are certified."


November 13, 1927 -

The New York Holland Tunnel officially opened today, the first underwater tunnel built in the United States, providing access between New York City and New Jersey beneath the Hudson River, ushering in a massive wave of Dutch immigration (and more fools them - The tunnel was named after its chief engineer, Clifford Milburn Holland, who died of a heart attack on the operating table while undergoing a tonsillectomy, as a posthumous honor, starting the trend for the NY/NJ interstate crossings to have names with no relation to their geographic locations).



Although most of the Dutch returned to Holland after learning that New Amsterdam had become New York.


November 13, 1947 -
The AK-47 assault rifle development by Mikhail Kalashnikov in the Soviet Union was completed on this date. The rifle was one of the first assault rifles to be created.



Today, it is the most widely-used assault rifle in the world — more AK-47 models have been made than all other assault rifle models put together.


November 13, 1955 -
Happy Birthday Caryn



Whoopi Goldberg (Caryn Elaine Johnson) actress, comedienne, and television host, was born on this day.


November 13, 1965 -
Appearing on a late night live satire program called BBC3, critic Kenneth Tynan becomes the first man to say “Fuck” on TV.

A national fit of apoplexy follows with one Tory MP suggesting that Tynan should hang!


November 13, 1966 -
Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin became the first astronaut to successfully work in space without tiring, during the Gemini 12 flight. (Previous astronauts suffered from fatigue carrying out tasks during EVA).



Aldrin worked outside the Gemini craft for 2 hours and 6 minutes, demonstrating that astronauts could work outside their transport.


November 13, 1971 -
The American space probe, Mariner 9, becomes the first space probe to orbit another planet when it enters into orbit around Mars on this date. The probe’s mission was to return photographs that would map seventy percent of the surface while conducting a study of the planet’s atmosphere.



Analysis of the data returned by the probe revealed that the planet is covered in dried river beds. Two Soviet probes achieved the same orbit about a month later.


November 13, 1974 -
Karen Silkwood, a technician and union activist at the Kerr-McGee Cimarron plutonium plant near Crescent, Okla., was killed in a 'car crash' while on her way to meet a reporter on this date.



The Kerr-McGee nuclear fuel plants closed in 1975. The grounds of the Cimarron plant were still being decontaminated more than 40 years later.


November 13, 1982 -
Maya Lin's simple yet elegant Vietnam Veterans Memorial was dedicated on Veteran's Day to the veterans of the Vietnam War on this date (the memorial was opened to the public a few days earlier.) The memorial was built with polished granite, and it displays the names of over 60,000 veterans.



No federal funds were used to construct the wall. Private contributions from individuals, corporations, veterans and other organizations, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund raised almost $9 million.


It is the seventh anniversary of the deadly Paris attacks, massacring 130 people in the bloodiest terror attack in years.



Please take a moment out of your day to remember the victims and their families.


Before you go - I thought it was strange that the British center their holiday celebrations around their favorite supermarket, so I guess this advert is the natural extension - Tesco (a popular supermarket chain) released a political broadcast



With the pledge to help during the cost of living crisis this Christmas with a commitment to delivering an affordable festive season for everyone, look for candidates for president in 2024 picking up this theme and becoming supermarkets during the election.

And so it goes