Research shows that what is known as the “shower effect” also can occur outside the shower, and many of our best thoughts don’t happen at work or school — but occur while going about our days with ideas incubating in the background.
August 22, 1929 -
Walt Disney released the animated short film The Skeleton Dance (The first of Disney's Silly Symphony series,) animated by Ub Iwerks, on this date.
At the time, Walt Disney distributed his films through a company run by Pat Powers. But Powers couldn't sell it to distributors (who found the dancing skeletons odd and even gruesome). Undeterred, Disney was able to have the film screened at the Carthay Circle Theater in Los Angeles, where it was a rousing success.
August 22, 1930 -
W.C. Fields' classic short, The Golf Specialist, premiered on this date.
The picture of Bellweather on the wanted poster shows W.C. Fields in costume for his "Fatal Glass of Beer" sketch. It obviously is taken from a stage presentation of the well-tried routine, as the comedian would not film it until 1933.
August 22, 1946 -
The last of Alfred Hitchcock's wartime thrillers, Notorious, premiered on this date.
The legendary on-again, off-again kiss between Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman was designed to skirt the Hayes Code that restricted kisses to no more than three seconds each.
August 22, 1970 -
Bread's single Make It With You from their album, On the Waters, went to No. 1 on the Billboard Charts on this date.
Released on their second album, this was the first hit for Bread, although David Gates had some previous success as a songwriter, including the #3 hit on the US Charts, Popsicles And Icicles in 1964 for the female trio The Murmaids. They followed it up by rereleasing a song from the previous year, It Don't Matter To Me, which reached #10. Their most successful songs were more light favorites: If and Baby I'm-A Want You.
August 22, 1972 -
The movie that introduced Monty Python and its seminal brand of comedy to American audiences, And Now for Something Completely Different, premiered in the U.S. on this date.
This was the debut theatrical feature film directed by television Director Ian MacNaughton, who was also later credited for "filmed sequences" for Monty Python's later sketch comedy concert movie, Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl. These two movies were MacNaughton's only theatrical movie credits.
August 22, 1981 -
Duran Duran had their breakthrough hit in Britain when their single Girls On Film, hits #5 in the UK, on this date. It does not chart on its US release, but surges in popularity after its music video goes into heavy rotation on MTV.
(Kids, ask your folks if you're allowed to watch this video)
This song is best known for its video, which was the first extended video ever made and was quite racy. Simon Le Bon has said in interviews that the controversy over the song's notoriously raunchy music video eclipsed the song's message of fashion model exploitation. The video was directed by Lol Creme and Kevin Godley, who were the leaders of the group 10cc and also recorded as Godley & Creme.
August 22, 1986 -
Rob Reiner adaptation of the novella by Stephen King, Stand By Me, starring Wil Wheaton, River Phoenix, Corey Feldman, Jerry O'Connell, and Kiefer Sutherland premiered in US Theatres on this date.
River Phoenix, Corey Feldman, Wil Wheaton and Jerry O'Connell got into a lot of mischief in the hotel they were staying in during filming. This included throwing all the poolside furniture into the pool, Wheaton fixing video games in the lobby so they could play them for free and Phoenix (spurred on by the other boys) unknowingly covering Kiefer Sutherland's car in mud, only discovering whose car it was when Sutherland confronted a scared and nervous Phoenix about it later.
August 22, 1990 -
Allan Moyle's teen comedy-drama, Pump Up the Volume, starring Christian Slater and Samantha Mathis, premiered on this date.
Allan Moyle described the movie's protagonist and central character of Mark Hunter (played by Christian Slater) as an amalgam of Lenny Bruce and Holden Caulfield.
August 22, 2020 -
Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion single WAP, goes to the top of the charts on this date. The song has the destinction of being the most sexually explicit song ever to top the Billboard Charts.
(Kids, check with your folks if you're allowed to listen to this song.)
The Colin Tilley directed video finds Cardi and Megan exploring a luxurious mansion that features some of their celebrity friends dancing behind certain doors. They are, in order of appearance, Kylie Jenner, Normani, Rosalía, Mulatto, Sukihana and Rubi Rose.
Today's moment of Zen
Today in History:
August 22, 565 -
St. Columba, the man credited with introducing Christianity to Scotland, reported seeing a monster in Loch Ness on this date.
August 22, 1485 -
At the Battle of Bosworth, England's King Richard III was terminated for having made a fiscally irresponsible bid on a horse.
For evermore, kingdoms went for a great deal more than small pieces of hardware.
August 22, 1770 -
Captain James Cook claimed Australia for the British crown when he landed on a small island off the coast of Queensland.
August 22, 1776 -
George Washington asked the Continental Congress for permission to burn New York City, to stop the city from being used to quarter troops arriving via the British fleet. It is declined, but his soldiers set 1/4th of the town ablaze on September 21.
August 22, 1849 -
In the first air raid in history, Austria launched 200 pilotless balloons (these were not those 99 luftballons Nena sang about,) each attached with 30-pound bombs, against the city of Venice on this date.
It's Claude Debussy's birthday (You may feel piss proud of yourself for just listening.)
You may go back about your business
August 22, 1851 -
The American schooner America was allowed, through special dispensation of Queen Victoria, to enter the annual Royal Yacht Squadron's Regatta. The America won the race, beating out 15 competitors and the trophy was renamed the America's Cup after the yacht.
The race was a 53-mile (85-kilometer) regatta at the Isle of Wight. The Cup is the oldest trophy awarded in international sports.
August 22, 1864 -
12 nations sign the first Geneva Convention specifically calling for the protection of the wounded during times of active warfare on this date. This leads directly to formation of the Red Cross.
In 1882, U.S. President Chester Arthur signed the treaty, making the U.S. the 32nd nation to do so.
August 22, 1893 -
If you have any young friends who aspire to become writers, the second greatest favor you can do them is to present them with copies of The Elements of Style. The first greatest, of course, is to shoot them now, while they’re happy.
Dorothy Parker was born in New York City, to Henry and Eliza Rothschild (... My God, no, dear! We'd never even heard of those Rothschilds ....) on this date.
Her birth was two months premature, allowing her to say that it was the last time she was early for anything. She was quoted, when discussing her early years, "All those writers who write about their childhood! Gentle God, if I wrote about mine you wouldn’t sit in the same room with me."
While she was a successful writer, she was just plain lousy at committing suicide. Dorothy Parker attempted suicide four times herself before succumbing to a heart attack in 1967.
August 22, 1902 -
President Theodore Roosevelt became the first U.S. chief executive to ride in an automobile (a purple-lined Columbia Electric Victoria) in Hartford, Ct. on this date. The police detail covering the event rode bicycles.
August 22, 1906 -
The Victor Talking Machine Company of Camden, New Jersey, manufactured its first Victrola record player on this date.
August 22, 1920 -
The late great Ray Bradbury, science fiction writer whose works include The Martian Chronicles and Fahrenheit 451, was born on this date.
Though considered by many to be the greatest science-fiction writer of the of the 20th century, he suffers from a fear of flying and driving. He has never learned to drive, and did not fly in an airplane until October 1982.
August 22, 1938 -
Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, one of Hollywood's most famous dancing duos, appeared on the cover of Life Magazine.
August 22, 1939 -
The first U.S. patent (US Patent #2170531 A) was issued for a disposable whipped cream aerosol container on this date.
And so Whippets were born - I've got nothing else to say.
August 22, 1962 -
A group called the OAS (Secret Army Organization in English) plotted an assassination attempt on President Charles De Gaulle, who they believed had betrayed France by giving up Algeria (in northern Africa) to Algerian nationalists.
Frederick Forsyth dramatized the events of that August in his best-selling novel The Day of the Jackal, later made into a film.
August 22, 1973 -
Henry Kissinger, German-born American bureaucrat, succeeded William Rogers as Secretary of State under President Richard Nixon, on this date.
(I really don't care about the man but it gave me an excuse to play a clip of Gilda Radner and John Belushi.)
August 22, 1989 -
Nolan Ryan's fifth inning strike out of Rickey Henderson, on this date, made him the first Major League Baseball pitcher to record 5,000 strikeouts.
His 5,714 career strikeouts rank first in baseball history by a significant margin.
August 22, 2007 -
The Texas Rangers routed the Baltimore Orioles 30–3 on this date. The Rangers became the first and so far only team in MLB history to score 30 runs in a single game. They scored five runs in the fourth, nine in the sixth, 10 in the eighth, and six more in the ninth.
Believe it or not, Texas was scoreless through the first three innings of the game.
And so it goes.
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