An odd piece of trivia -

The 20th of March is Snowman Burning Day, (in 100 days.)



Snowman Burning Day is a celebration that marks the ends of winter and the beginning of spring. The holiday was first celebrated in 1971. The Unicorn Hunters at the Lake Superior State University (LSSU) have established the holiday. The idea for Snowman Burning Day came from Germany's Rose Sunday Festival, where the mayor of each town burns a straw snowman to welcome spring, but only if the children of the town have been good all year. It has been in celebration on the first day of Spring since then.


December 12, 1531-
It's the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin, an indigenous peasant, had visions of the Virgin Mary. Legend held that the Virgin Mary appeared to Juan Diego outside Mexico City and left an imprint on his cactus-fiber poncho. The poncho became an icon for the Virgin of Guadalupe.

It's early and I'll stop hurting your brain with too much info but go impress those ladies with your new found knowledge later.


December 12, 1954 -
BBC Television aired the landmark adaptation of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four on this date. It was the most expensive drama produced to date.



Unusually for a British TV production of that era, this story survives as a telerecording. At the time, the majority of television was transmitted live, and most shows were not recorded. However, the original transmission had been so successful that this restaged version was kept in the hope it could be sold to foreign networks.


December 12, 1966 -
Fred Zinnemann's adaptation of Robert Bolt's play about Sir Thomas More, A Man for All Seasons starring Paul Scofield premiered in New York on this date.



Playwright and screenwriter Robert Bolt borrowed the title from Robert Whittington, a contemporary of Sir Thomas More, who in 1520 wrote of him: "More is a man of an angel's wit and singular learning; I know not his fellow. For where is the man of that gentleness, lowliness, and affability? And, as time requireth, a man of marvelous mirth and pastimes, and sometime of as sad gravity: a man for all seasons."


December 12, 1966 -
Supermarionation was on full display when Thunderbirds are GO, based on the successful TV series, was released in the UK on this date. While the film received good reviews, it was not a box office success.



The first feature film to be shot using the Livingston Electronic Viewfinder Unit, also known as Add-a-Vision. This was basically an electronic viewfinder that could be used in conjunction with a Mitchell BNC Camera to take a television picture directly from the camera, enabling the staff of the entire unit to watch any scene being filmed on the television monitors. This also allowed the puppeteers to better control their puppets and keep them on their marks in the frame.


December 12, 1967 -
Stanley Kramer's controversial film (for the time,) Guess Who's Coming To Dinner, starring Spencer Tracy (in his last role), Sidney Poitier, and Katharine Hepburn, was released on this date.



In the scene near the end where Spencer Tracy gives his memorable soliloquy, Katharine Hepburn can be seen crying in the background. This was not acting: she knew how gravely ill her longtime friend was and was moved by his remarks about how true love endures through the years.


December 12, 1972 -
Irwin Allen's ocean disaster movie, The Poseidon Adventure, premiered in NYC on this date.



Paul Gallico was inspired to write his novel by a voyage he made on the Queen Mary. When he was having breakfast in the dining room, the liner was hit by a large wave, sending people and furniture crashing to the other side of the vessel. He was further inspired by a true incident which occurred aboard the Queen Mary during World War II. Packed with American troops bound for Europe, the ship was struck by a gargantuan freak wave in the North Atlantic. It was calculated that if the ship had rolled another five inches, she would have capsized like the Poseidon.


December 12, 1973 -
Columbia Picture released the Hal Ashby film The Last Detail, starring Jack Nicholson, Randy Quaid, Carol Kane and Michael Moriarty, on this date.



Jack Nicholson turned down the role of Johnny Hooker in The Sting, which he thought was too commercial, to appear in this film, which was written by his good friend Robert Towne. Nicholson and Redford were nominated as Best Actor of 1973 at the Academy Awards, losing out to Jack Lemmon in Save the Tiger.


December 12, 1980 -
Whip It earned Devo a gold record on this date. It is the first distinction of its kind for any song about masturbation to earn a gold record. Well, whip it good!



When MTV launched in 1981, they had very few videos to choose from. Some European and Australian artists had been making videos, but very few came from US artists, and most of those were concert videos. Devo had been making interesting videos for a while because they thought Laser Discs were going to catch on and wanted to make film shorts with music soundtracks that people could watch on them. Laser Discs never caught on, but MTV did, which gave this video lots of exposure.


Hey Jilly, that guy didn't check out the next episode of the Holiday Spectacular! Go punch him.


Today in History:
December 12, 1870 -
Joseph H. Rainey of South Carolina was sworn in as the second African American congressman (after Hiram Revels) in the U.S. House of Representatives, on this date.

Born into slavery in South Carolina, he was freed in the 1840s by his father, a slave who had been allowed to work as a barber and split the profits with his “master”. With his savings, he purchased the freedom of his entire family.

As a respectable leader in Charleston, Joseph Rainey joined the Republican Party and eventually won four elections to Congress, where he worked hard to gain passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1875.


December 12, 1899 -
Dentist George Grant was granted a patent (U.S. patent No. 638,920) for the modern golf tee on this date. The design, basically, lifts a golf ball slightly off the ground.

This additional height gives the golfer better control in his hit. Before the invention of the golf tee, golfers would often make a small mound of dirt or sand to serve as a tee. Groundskeepers everywhere rejoice.


December 12, 1915 -
It's the birthday of Francis Albert today. Once again, under advise of legal council, I have make no jokes or innuendos about Mr. Sinatra's alleged organized crime connection, especially since I work at a union facility (Please note - I did not use the word, Mafia.)



And once again, We here at ACME would like to remind the various gentlemen from Bensonhurst with whom we had occasion to speak with - we did not resort to any cheap gimmicks to slander the Chairman of the Board, greatest singer of the 20th century. (Now will you please return the new cat - the children are quite attached to her since our old cat passed.)


December 12, 1917 -
With a rent payment of $90 borrowed from a friend, Father Edward Flanagan founded Boys Town outside Omaha, NE in an old Victorian mansion on this date.



Flanagan's archbishop allowed Flanagan to focus on the boy's home and assigned nuns to help him.


December 12, 1937 -
Japanese aircraft shell and sink US gunboat Panay on the Yangtze River in China. Japan apologized, disciplining those involved and paying $2.2M reparations.



You think we might have seen something was brewing.


December 12, 1968 -
If I had to live my life again, I'd make the same mistakes, only sooner.



After a long and well enjoyed life, Tallulah Bankhead died in St. Luke's Hospital in New York City of double pneumonia, complicated by emphysema and malnutrition, on this date.



Her last coherent words reportedly were "Codeine... bourbon." (I absolutely will be stealing that, except substituting gin for bourbon at the end.)


Before you go - ACME would like to bring you another in a series of holiday safety tips:



Holiday tip No. 195 - Giants monsters are attracted to bright lights and decorations, so please turn off your lights and stay inside!

And so it goes