Today is National Cereal Day. On this date, Dr. John Kellogg served corn flakes for the first time to his patients at his hospital in Battle Creek, Michigan. Dr. Kellogg wanted Americans to eat corn flakes because he thought the bland food would reduce the desire to commit carnal sins. They wouldn’t be sold commercially until 1906. Corn flakes did not put a stop to self love.
In honor of National Cereal Day remember to have the true Breakfast of Champions in celebration today!
March 7, 1936 -
Walt Disney's Mickey's Grand Opera, premiered on this date.
I'm not a big Disney fan (especially Mickey Mouse) but this one is pretty funny. Donald Duck underwent a major face lift after this cartoon.
March 7, 1955 -
Peter Pan, the first full-length Broadway production broadcast in color, (starring Mary Martin and the show's original cast) was broadcast on this date.
It was so well received that the musical was restaged again live for television on January 9, 1956. Both of these broadcasts were produced in color, but only black-and-white kinescope recordings survive.
March 7, 1960 -
After a month’s absence, Jack Paar had re-appeared as the host on The Tonight Show on this date.
He had walked off in protest against censorship before returning to his position as host of this production. He had made a joke about a “water closet” (European bathroom), which most likely would have been considered mild according to the standards set today.
March 7, 1962 -
The Alain Resnais' enigmatic masterpiece, L'Année dernière à Marienbad (Last Year at Marienbad), opened in the US on this date.
The film is included in both The Fifty Worst Films of All Time (And How They Got That Way) by Harry Medved and Randy Lowell and 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, edited by Steven Schneider.
March 7, 1964 -
John Frankenheimer's under-appreciated almost documentary-like thriller set set during WWII, The Train, premiered on this date.
Director Arthur Penn oversaw the development of the film and directed the first day of shooting. The next day was a holiday. Burt Lancaster, dissatisfied with Penn's conception of the picture, had him fired and replaced by John Frankenheimer. Penn envisioned a more intimate film that would muse on the role art played in the French character, and why they would risk their lives to save the country's most renowned paintings from the Nazis. He did not intend to give much focus to the mechanics of the train operation itself. Frankenheimer said that in the original script Penn wanted to shoot, the train did not leave the station until page 90. The production was shut down briefly while the script was rewritten. Lancaster told screenwriter Walter Bernstein the day Penn was fired, "Frankenheimer is a bit of a whore, but he'll do what I want." What Lancaster wanted was more emphasis on action in order to ensure that the film was a hit - after the failure of his film The Leopard - by appealing to a broader audience.
March 7, 1975 -
Felix finally moves out of Oscar's apartment at 1049 Park Ave. when The Odd Couple aired the final episode Felix Remarries, on this date.
While this was the final first-run episode that aired, Your Mother Wears Army Boots was the last episode that was filmed.
March 7, 1980 -
Michael Apted's Loretta Lynn biopic, Coal Miner's Daughter, starring Sissy Spacek, Beverly D'Angelo, Tommy Lee Jones and Levon Helms premiered in US theatres on this date.
According to Loretta Lynn, her husband Doolittle wanted nothing to do with Tommy Lee Jones, who was playing him, until shortly before shooting began in Butcher Holler. Jones rented a Jeep, got drunk on moonshine,and went tearing through the town in the vehicle, only to get arrested for drunk driving, beat up for resisting arrest and jailed. Doolittle liked him immediately after that.
March 7, 1983 -
New Order released their song Blue Monday, as a 12-inch on the Factory Records label on this date.
The title is not mentioned in the lyrics, which is true of many New Order songs. The band took the song's name from an illustration in the Kurt Vonnegut book Breakfast Of Champions, which Stephen Morris was reading. One of its illustrations read: "Goodbye Blue Monday," referring to the invention of the washing machine improving housewives' lives.
March 7, 1986 -
This was a Red Letter Day for Daniel Day Lewis.
Lewis was relatively unknown in the US at that time and critics raved about how great the range of his talent was to play such vastly different characters. (It's called acting)
March 7, 2014 -
Another home movie by Wes Anderson and his pals, The Grand Budapest Hotel, starring Ralph Fiennes, F. Murray Abraham, Adrien Brody, Willem Dafoe, Jeff Goldblum, Harvey Keitel, Jude Law, Bill Murray, Edward Norton, Saoirse Ronan, Jason Schwartzman, Tilda Swinton, and Owen Wilson, when into limited release worldwide on this date.
As an example of how important attention to detail is in movies, graphic designer Annie Atkins stated in interviews that they had created a prop notebook for M. Gustave (Ralph Fiennes) to use. However, Fiennes immediately noticed that the notebook had no lines in it. After arguing that an organized and meticulous man as his character, M. Gustave, would always prefer lines to write on, the design department got him a notebook with lines. Atkins later stopped using this example when she learned that journalists had completely missed her point, and were instead writing about Fiennes' alleged diva behavior on the set.
Today's moment of Zen
Today in History:
March 7, 1876 -
Alexander Graham Bell receives US Patent #174,465 for his revolutionary new invention - the telephone.
Elisha Gray, Antonio Meucci and Thomas Edison all claimed to have invented the telephone first, and the issue is still a source of controversy.
Another episode of The Crazy Mixed-Up Russian Revolution
March 7, 1917 -
Russia's 1917 February Revolution began on March 7, which was then the middle of February, in the city of St. Petersburg, which was then Petrograd, in what was then Russia, but would soon be the Soviet Union.
Tsar (or Czar) Nicholas II of the Romanov (or Romanoff) line had been away from St. Petersburg (or Petrograd) most of the winter, leading his army against the German Empire's Eastern Front (or Russia's Western Front).
Russia's peasants and workers had become exhausted by the war and its attendant famine and were exasperated by the Tsarina's indifference to their suffering. They were furious with the government, which had become two governments and therefore twice as bad. And they were tired of all this nonsense about March being February, St. Petersburg being Petrograd, the Czar being Tsar, and all those crazy, mixed-up fronts.
In short, the peasants were revolting. And so these poor bastards began a series of riots and strikes that eventually led to what is now known as the February Revolution.
With her usual delicate touch, the Tsarina tried to assuage the rioters by having them shot, but her soldiers refused to fire on the crowds. She therefore ordered the soldiers to shoot themselves and was disobeyed again.
It was a bleak moment for the House of Romanov, which like most monarchies had endured through the centuries largely as a result of its soldiers' willingness to shoot people.
One Year later:
On March 7, 1918 the Bolsheviks changed their name to the Russian Communist Party.
Bolsheviks is Russian for majority, as opposed to Mensheviks, which means minority. The Mensheviks, however, were in fact the majority party in 1918, and the Bolsheviks the minority, so the name change helped ease the work of journalists, who had become so confused they'd begun writing stories about children and ducks.
March 7, 1923 -
... And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
The popular poem by Robert Frost, Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening, was first published on this day in The New Republic.
March 7, 1933 -
Charles Darrow, for some reason claims that he invented The Monopoly board game on this date. Thank your rich Uncle Pennybags.
(Quite truthfully, the history of the Monopoly game is so complicated, for legal reasons, just go with this date, don't ask about Elizabeth Magie's 'The Landlord Game' and her patent of March 23, 1903.)
March 7, 1964 -
People are going to label you anyway, but the one that bugs me the most is when they say, 'One of the funniest female comedians.' There's s no 'funniest male comedians.' You're either a funny comedian, or you're not!
Wanda Sykes, actress, comedian, and writer, was born on this date.
March 7, 1945 -
Gen. George Patton urinated in the Rhine after the U.S. Third Army took the bridge at Remagen on this date.
So remember, you can't slap a soldier for cowardice but you can piss in your enemy's river.
March 7, 1965 -
Protesting the shooting death of Jimmie Lee Jackson (a 26-year-old church deacon from Marion,) by an Alabama State Trooper, a group of more than 600 Civil Rights marchers trying to get to the state capitol in Montgomery, was broken up in Selma, Alabama, on this date.
Coverage of the riot, which was broken up by state troopers with tear gas and whips, was one of the first to get major coverage in the Civil Rights movement and put the national spotlight on the issue.
March 7, 1988 -
Trans actress Divine (Harris Glenn Milstead,) who appeared in several John Waters films, died from sleep apnea on this date. Divine was about to join the cast of Married with Children when she unexpected stopped breathing.
The producers of Married With Children sent flowers to the funeral, along with a humorous card that read, If you didn't want to do the show, you could have just SAID something!
March 7, 1999 -
The screen is a magic medium. It has such power that it can retain interest as it conveys emotions and moods that no other art form can hope to tackle.
Stanley Kubrick, who directed 13 films, including Dr. Strangelove, A Clockwork Orange and 2001: A Space Odyssey, died in Hertfordshire, England, at age 70 on this date.
And so it goes.
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