The idiom “mad as a hatter” was around long before Carroll started writing. Colloquially used to describe an eccentric person, “mad as a hatter” is based on a problem that arose in the 1800s when hat companies used lead in the hat-making process. The lead got into their systems and they went insane, hence the term “mad as a hatter”.
October 6, 1927 -
Good, bad or indifferent to it, The Jazz Singer (the first feature-length movie with audible synchronized dialogue), premiered in NYC on this date.
Al Jolson's famous line (as Jack Robin) "You ain't heard nothin' yet." was an ad-lib. The intention was that the film should only have synchronized music, not speech, but Jolson dropped in the line (which he used in his stage act) after the song Dirty Hands, Dirty Face. The director wisely left it in.
In the late 40s through the 50s, the CIA led a top secret campaign, called Militant Liberty that encouraged studios to insert the theme of freedom into Hollywood movies. Alfred P. Sloan (think about the name and it will come to you) the recently retired head of of General Motors from 1923 to 1946, was recruited to head the cause. Sloan hired George Stewart Benson, president of Harding College to produce a series of cartoons to promote anti-Communist, pro-free enterprise themes.
Make Mine Freedom, which premiered on this date, was one of the first. At least three Warner Bros. cartoons during the period, Heir Conditioned, By Word of Mouse, and Yankee Dood It were probably produced under this program. And the famous Duck and Cover as well as Disney's Our Friend the Atom have the fingerprints of the program all over them. (We don't even have time to discuss the CIA's involvement with the live action studios during the time.)
October 6, 1960 -
Stanley Kubrick's gladiator spectacular, Spartacus, starring Kirk Douglas, Laurence Olivier, Peter Ustinov, John Gavin, Jean Simmons, Charles Laughton, and Tony Curtis, premiered in New York City on this date.
Peter Ustinov joked about his daughter, born at the beginning of production, being in kindergarten by the time this movie was finished. When asked what her father did for a living, she would answer, "Spartacus".
October 6, 1963 -
The wonderful adaption of the classic 18th Century novel, Tom Jones premiered in NYC on this date. (Bizarre piece of trivia: this was the last film that John F. Kennedy saw before his assassination.)
It took three hours to shoot the famous eating scene, in which Tom Jones and Mrs. Waters express their lust for each other by tearing into a huge feast. Buckets were conveniently placed out of camera range to accommodate the actors, who kept throwing up from all the eating.
October 6, 1963 -
“She was holding my hand and I thought, ‘Gee, she seems nervous.’ At that time, I wasn’t nervous. I was still very young, I think, about to do ‘Funny Girl,’ and now, when I think back on it, I think, ‘Oh, my God, I know exactly what she’s feeling.’ Or, you know, the fears. It’s like, as you get older and people are kind of looking for you to fail more, I think—not people, not the audience—but, you know, critics or producers or whatever. And I just felt her. I felt her anxiety. . . .”
Barbra Streisand appeared on The Judy Garland Show on this date and performed one of the most iconic duets in TV history.
October 6, 1965 -
The Supremes single I Hear a Symphony went to No. 1 on this date.
This was written by the songwriting team of Holland-Dozier-Holland, who wrote five consecutive #1 hits for The Supremes, starting with Where Did Our Love Go. Their next single was Nothing But Heartaches, which brought the streak to an end when it peaked at #11, but they went right back to the top with the next one, I Hear A Symphony.
0ctober 6, 1966 -
The Star Trek episode The Enemy Within, first ared on this date.
The episode marks the first use of the line, “He’s dead, Jim.”
October 6, 1967 -
Kirk, Scott, McCoy and Uhura enter a parallel universe in the Star Trek episode Mirror, Mirror, which aired on this date. (Look for Spocks' outrageous Van Dyke beard in this episode.)
It took about a month to complete this particular episode. After filming had begun, BarBara Luna was diagnosed with strep throat. Since the script called for Capt. Kirk to kiss her, they had to postpone the kissing scene for three weeks until she was medically cleared, since they couldn't risk William Shatner getting infected. (I'm sure Bill would have risked it.)
October 6, 1969 -
The Beatles release a double A-side single Something and Come Together on this date. It was the only song written by George Harrison released as a single by The Beatles.
George Harrison wrote this during a break while The Beatles were working on The White Album. It was not recorded in time for the album, so Harrison gave the song to Joe Cocker, but Cocker didn't release it until late in 1969 on his second album, Joe Cocker!, which came out about a month after The Beatles issued it on Abbey Road.
John Lennon was sued for stealing the guitar riff and the line "Here comes old flat-top" from Chuck Berry's You Can't Catch Me. The lawsuit did not come from Berry, but from Morris Levy, one of the music industry's most infamous characters. He owned the song along with thousands of other early rock songs that he obtained from many poor, black, and unrepresented artists. Levy sued the Beatles, or more accurately, John Lennon, over the song around the time the Beatles broke up.
For years, Lennon delayed the trial while he and the Beatles tried to sort out all the legal and business problems that plagued Apple Records. Finally, in an attempt to avoid the court room as much as he could (Lennon felt like he was appearing in court more often than not), he settled with Levy. Lennon agreed to record his Rock N Roll album, which was just a series of cover songs, including three songs Levy owned (including You Can't Catch Me) on the tracklist.
October 6, 1973 –
Cher's single, Half-Breed, went to No. 1 on the Billboard Charts on this date. (Sorry for the earworm.)
Snuff Garrett produced the song despite his intention to quit working with Sonny and Cher. He had been battling Sonny, the singer's then-husband, over what type of material she should be singing. Lyricist Mary Dean wasn't aware of the conflict when she brought Half-Breed to Garrett, a song she wrote with Al Capps specifically for Cher. By the time this hit #1, Sonny & Cher's recording career as a duo had hit the skids with their last single, Mama Was A Rock and Roll Singer, petering out at #77. Their marriage wasn't performing much better; they divorced in 1975.
October 6, 1976 -
The song, Disco Duck by Rick Dees and His Cast of Idiots received a gold record on this date. The song was featured in the movie Saturday Night Fever but was not included on its soundtrack album.
According to Dees, the voice of the duck was provided by a guy he met at the gym who could pull it off. This was Kenneth Pruitt, who sued Dees after the song became a hit, claiming he was paid just $188 for his services, which included dressing up in a duck suit to promote the song on various TV appearances and on a walk through Times Square in New York City. It's likely that the suit was settled and Pruitt ordered to keep quiet - he has not been heard from.
October 6, 1978 -
Alan Parker's harrowing drama, Midnight Express starring Brad Davis, Randy Quaid and John Hurt, premiered in the US on this date.
Although the movie is based on a true story, it has been indicated by Billy Hayes twenty years after its release, that what is presented in the movie is a very exaggerated version of what happened to him in the prison in Istanbul, Turkey.
October 6, 1992 -
32 years ago, R.E.M. released their eighth studio album, Automatic for the People, on this date.
The album title was inspired by Weaver D's soul food diner in Athens, Georgia. When you ordered food there, they answered by saying "automatic." They had a sign that said "Delicious Fine Foods - Automatic For The People."
Today in History:
Today is Armed Forces Day in Egypt (we'll get back to Armed Forces Day in a moment but it's not in celebration of the Elvis Costello album) and Ivy Day in Ireland. (Ivy Day is not a horticultural celebration. The date marks the anniversary of the 1891 death of Irish nationalist Charles Stewart Parnell;
Irish favoring home rule traditionally pin a bit of ivy to their lapels in his honor.
Aeschylus was the first Greek playwright to produce tragedies as we would know them today, but that's not important to our story today.
According to legend, Aeschylus died when an eagle, mistaking his bald head for a stone, dropped a tortoise on it, killing him instantly on this date in 456 BC (that was tragedy for Aeschylus but it's comedy to us.)
October 6, 105 BC –
Speaking of The Roman Empire (which I have a reason to - I write about history) - The battle of Arausio, occurred on this date. Migratory tribes of Cimbri (possibly a Celtic people but origin uncertain) led by Boiorix and Teutoni win a decisive victory against two Roman armies outside Arausio (now Orange in southeastern France) near the Rhone River.
The two inexperienced Roman commanders – proconsul Quintus Servilius Caepio, a noble, refuses to serve under the higher-ranked consul Gnaeus Mallius Maximus because he is a ‘new man’ – are so much at odds that Caepio launches an inept assault on the Cimbrian camp while Maximus is negotiating with Boiorix – causing virtually all the Romans and large numbers of their allied troops, servants and camp followers to be lost, one of the worst defeats in Roman history.
So I actually had a reason to think about it.
October 6, 1014 -
Czar Samuil of Bulgaria died of a heart attach after an army of 15,000 of his men returned, blinded by his enemy Emperor Basil of the Byzantine Empire. One out of every hundred of his men was permitted to keep one eye, such that they were able to return home.
I guess we shouldn't complain.
October 6 is the anniversary of one of the greatest moments in the history of literary criticism. It was on that date in 1536 that William Tyndale was recognized for his important contribution to world literature, the first translation of the New Testament into English - by being tied to the stake, strangled, and his dead body then burnt.
Ah, when men were men, women were women, and critics were murderous, torch-wielding fanatics!
October 6, 1956 -
Albert Sabin announced that his oral polio vaccine was ready for testing, on this date. With the menace of polio growing, complicated by the fact that there were 3 different strains of the crippling disease, Jonas Salk developed a vaccine given by injection, but it was only effective in preventing complications of polio, and did not prevent the initial infection.
By carrying out autopsies of polio victims, Sabin was able to demonstrate that the poliovirus multiplied and attacked the intestines before it moved to the central nervous system. He developed an oral vaccine, to be put onto sugar cubes that stimulated antibody production.
October 6, 1961 -
President John F. Kennedy advised American families to build bomb shelters to protect them from atomic fallout in the event of a nuclear war, on this date.
In raising Cold War civil defense issues, Kennedy said the government would soon begin providing such protection for every American.
Many Americans did prepare for nuclear war by buying up canned goods and building backyard bomb shelters. Also at the time many home builders offered a bomb shelter as part of new home packages.
October 6, 1966 -
LSD was declared illegal in the US on this date.
Hopefully you timed your intake accordingly.
October 6, 1973 -
In a surprise attack on the Jewish highest holiday of Yom Kippur - Syrian and Egyptian armies invaded Israel on this date, starting, what became known as, the Yom Kippur War. The US came to Israel's aid, but as Israel began winning the war, Israel wouldn't back down from the siege brought on by the Egyptian troops to the south.
The Soviet Union threatened to intervene on Egypt's behalf, causing high tensions between the US and Soviet Union that caused lasting damage to the relationship between two. Eventually, all parties came to a peace agreement.
October 6, 1976 -
During a televised debate on this date, President and candidate Gerald Ford asserts that there was 'no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe'.
Ford lost the election. (I believe the previous White House was trying to use the corollary, 'there was no Russian collusion in the election', from his playbook.)
October 6, 1981 -
During Armed Forces Day (commemorating Egypt's participation in the Arab-Israeli War,) armed gunmen leapt from a truck and began shooting into the reviewing stand at Egyptian President Anwar Sadat.
The assassination had been approved by Omar Abdel-Rahman, a cleric later convicted in the US for his role in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
October 6, 2007 -
Jason Lewis completed the first human-powered circumnavigation of the globe. Using a pedal boat, roller blades, bicycles, kayak, and his feet, the adventurer and sustainability campaigner finished the harrowing journey in a little over 13 years.
in the process of completing his ‘Expedition 360’, Lewis also became the first person to cross North America on inline skates, and the first to cross the Pacific Ocean by pedal power. Together with Stevie Smith, Lewis completed the first crossing of the Atlantic Ocean from mainland Europe to North America by human power. He successfully ended his 4,833-day expedition, having travelled 46,505 miles (74,842 km)
Before you go - whether or not you want to acknowledge this - Christmas and the start of Hanukkah begin in 80 days!
Bunkies, try to do something to get off the naughty list! Or hope that Hanukkah Harry will come through with the gifts.
And so it goes
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