Santa - Con: Phooey!!!

The 'supposed' charity event - the 13th annual Santa-con in NYC today. (It may be the 17th one, but who cares, I don't.)



The amateur drinkers (in various states of holiday undress) are once again back in Manhattan this year: they will be in Midtown and Lower Manhattan, stating at 10 AM. I can take comfort that some of them may die, choking on their own (or someone else's) vomit later in the day. (Ask me how I feel about Santacon.)

I implore all who live along the route to begin collecting buckets of waste (both pet or otherwise) to rain down upon the drunken revelers. I am always, absolutely, in cranky old man mood when this event comes around - be warned!


A Special Word of the Day - Halcyon

The Halcyon Days of yore, begin today, a week before the winter solstice and end a week after.



According to legend, this two-week period is associated with unusually calm seas; hence the common meanings of halcyon as 'quiet' or 'peaceful' and by extension, 'prosperous.'


December 14, 1919 -
Felix the Cat first appeared in film, Feline Follies (under the name 'Master Tom',) on this date. This was a full nine years before Mickey Mouse’s debut in Disney’s Steamboat Willie.



The legendary cartoon character created in the silent film era by Pat Sullivan and Otto Messmer in Australia was a whimsical black cat that walked on two legs and often had the moves and childlike nature of Charlie Chaplin (who was an inspiration for Sullivan).


December 14, 1967 -
Richard Brooks' adaptation of Truman Capote's In Cold Blood, starring Robert Blake, Scott Wilson and John Forsythe, premiered in New York City on this date.



To get the authenticity he wanted, Richard Brooks filmed in all the actual locations including the Clutter house (where the murders took place) and the actual courtroom (six of the actual jurors were used). Even Nancy Clutter's horse Babe was used in a few scenes. The actual Kansas State Penitentiary facilities and gallows were not used the film.


December 14, 1968 -
Three Motown acts held the top three spots on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart, on this date:

1) I Heard It Through The Grapevine by Marvin Gaye



2) Love Child by The Supremes



3) For Once In My Life by Stevie Wonder



The chart stays the same the next week, and a week later Stevie and The Supremes trade positions.


December 14, 1969 -
Michael Jackson and the rest of The Jackson 5 made their first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show on this date.



The Jackson Five performed Sly and the Family Stone's Stand, Smokey Robinson's Who's Loving You, and their first hit single I Want You Back.


December 14, 1972 -
A very obscure (and not particularly good) Ringo Starr directed concert film, Born To Boogie starring Marc Bolan and T. Rex, Ringo Starr, and Elton John was released on The Beatles Apple Films label in the UK, on this date.



Much of the 8mm footage used in the closing credits was shot by Marc Bolan while on tour.


December 14, 1979 -
The Clash released their third studio album, London Calling, an album mix of punk, reggae, rockabilly, ska, New Orleans R&B, pop, lounge jazz, and hard rock, on this date.



London Calling was produced by Guy Stevens, best known at that point for his work with Mott the Hoople and the Faces. The album was ranked #8 on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.


December 14, 1984 -
The David Lynch version of Frank Herbert's Science Fiction classic, thought to be unfilmable; Dune, starring Kyle MacLachlan, Jose Ferrer, Francesca Annis and Sting, premiered on this date.



David Lynch has said he considers this film the only real failure of his career. To this day, he refuses to talk about the production in great detail, and has refused numerous offers to work on a special edition DVD.


Christmas Trivia
Brenda Lee was just 13 years old when she recorded Rockin around the Christmas Tree back in 1958.



The record mostly flopped upon its initial release, selling just 5,000 copies. The next year, they released the song a second time and it again flopped, selling just over what it did on its initial release. It finally started to gain some traction the next year as Brenda Lee's fame began to skyrocket, managing to rise as high as number 14 on the Hot 100 Pop Singles list. Within five years of that, it went as high as number three on that same list. By the song's 50th anniversary in 2008, Brenda Lee's original version of it had sold over 25 million copies, including about 700,000 digital copies, making it the fourth most digital downloads sold of any Christmas single.



To celebrate the 65th Anniversary of the release of her classic hit, Brenda Lee has release a new music video for the song.

Don't forget to tune in to another holiday edition of The ACME Eagle Hand Soap Radio Hour today


Today in History:
December 14, 1503 -
Nostradamus, famous french huckster (forerunner of Miss Cleo, for those of you who remember Miss Cleo) was born on this date.

He predicted correctly French king Henri II's manner of death. Nostradamus was the author of a book of prophecies that many still believe foretold the future. He wrote in rhyming quatrains, accurately predicting the Great London Fire in 1666, Spain's Civil War and that Hitler would lead Germany into war. He even correctly predicted his own death on July 2, 1566.



If you write vague enough prophecies, they will fool almost anyone.


December 14, 1656 -
Artificial pearls were first manufactured by M. Jacquin in Paris on this date.

They were made of gypsum pellets covered with fish scales.


December 14, 1702 -
A major part of Japanese history - the 47 Ronin were samurai until their master was ordered to commit suicide after killing an arrogant official. In revenge, the Ronin killed the official, and were then were ordered to commit suicide themselves.



The story of the 47 Ronin remains a popular Japanese legend, and the 47 Ronin are seen as examples of loyalty and faithfulness.

Try getting your staff to turn in reports on time.


December 14, 1807 -
A 'shooting star' fell in Weston, Connecticut at 6:30am on this date, making a hole five feet long and 4.5 feet wide. A young Yale professor, Benjamin Silliman, who rushed to the scene of the phenomenon pronounced it a meteorite.

The meteorite is believed to be the first meteorite to have been seen falling in the New World since the arrival of European settlers. Silliman's study of the Weston meteorite led the foundation of modern scientific research and helped in the development of the field of meteoritics.


December 14, 1861 -
Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, of tobacco can fame and husband of Queen Victoria, died at Windsor Castle from typhoid fever on this date.



The death of the Prince Consort sent Queen Victoria into a deep depression, which effected the entire Empire and even after her recovery she would remain in mourning for the rest of her life.


December 14, 1900 -
Max Planck published his theory of quantum mechanics, which is often considered one of the most radical scientific discoveries of the 20th Century, on this date. It's even more radical than the belief in the collection of Turkish union dues or statements made by the ex-president.

Max Planck was working in a laboratory in 1900, heating up various substances and examining the color of light they emitted when they reached certain temperatures. He also accidentally invented crack cocaine but that's another story. He wanted to describe his results in mathematical terms, but no matter how hard he tried, his mathematical calculations didn't make sense. The only way he could fix the problem was to assume that light travels in little packets, like bullets or balloon condoms filled with cocaine, lodged in the colon of drug mules, even though this seemed impossible.



But five years later, Albert Einstein took Planck's theory of light seriously, and wrote his first major paper exploring the idea of light traveling in packets, which he called photons. Even though he became better known for his theory of relativity, it was Einstein's work expanding on Planck's original ideas about light that won him a Nobel Prize. Einstein later said, "I use up more brain grease on quantum theory than on relativity."

With the discovery of quantum mechanics, physicists found that subatomic particles were by nature unpredictable. If you shot one across the room, you could guess where it might end up, but you could never be sure. This idea made Einstein miserable. He famously said, "I am at all events convinced God does not play dice."



Today quantum mechanics remains one of the most mysterious and difficult scientific theories ever. The Danish physicist Niels Bohr once said that a person who was not shocked by quantum theory did not understand it, and the physicist Richard Feynman once said that while only a modest number of people truly understand the theory of relativity, no one understands quantum mechanics.



Max Planck himself died in 1947 and he never came to fully accept the theory he discovered. But even if few people really understand it, quantum mechanics led to the development of modern electronics, including the transistor, the laser, and the computer.


December 14, 1911 -
Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen and his expedition successfully reached the South Pole on this date, beating out the rival expedition of British Robert Falcon Scott by almost a month.



Amundsen would later become the first explorer to ever fly over the North Pole in 1926.


December 14, 1934 -
The first streamlined locomotive, nicknamed the Commodore Vanderbilt, was introduced by the New York Central Railroad on this date.



Despite its elite status and opulent accommodations, the Commodore saw a short life in the postwar years. Following a series of cutbacks the Commodore was removed from the timetable in 1960.


December 14, 1944 -
Lupe Velez, Hollywood's Mexican Spitfire of the 1940s, committed suicide with an overdose of sleeping pills on this date.



Contrary to her plans of being found laid out on the bed in a silk nightgown, she is instead discovered in the bathroom with her head in the toilet. (OK bunkies, this is just an urban legend but let it get in back of the list of others, like the death of Cass Elliot or Judy Garland. Don't even get me started about the death of Albert Dekker.)

What a way to go!!!


December 14, 1955 -
The Tappan Zee Bridge (formerly known as Governor Malcolm Wilson Tappan Zee toll bridge, now the Governor Mario M. Cuomo Bridge) in New York opened to traffic on this date.



The bridge was decommissioned in 2016 and the first section of the new bridge opened in 2017. The entire bridge was completion in 2018.


December 14, 1963 -
Dinah Washington (nee Ruth Lee Jones,) the "Queen of the Blues", juggled numerous prescription medications, primarily for dieting and insomnia, most of her life.

It's Too Soon To Know -




It Could Happen to You -




September in the Rain -



An unintentional but lethal combination of alcohol and pills forever stilled her magnificent voice on this date. She was only 39 and was thankfully found in bed.


December 14, 2013 -
Chang'e 3 became the first spacecraft to land on the Moon since 1976 on this date.



Chang'e 3 was an unmanned lunar exploration mission operated by the China National Space Administration, incorporating a robotic lander and China's first lunar rover, the Yutu rover.


On this anniversary of the terrible act at Sandy Hook,

please honor the families of the victims by spreading kindness.


Before you go - More useless Christmas trivia -
Snapdragons - Apparently this is the best game ever to play on Christmas Eve. Make sure you have the fire department on speed dial though. Very popular from the 16th to the 19th centuries, Snapdragons (or Flapdragons) has explicably declined in popularity.



Gather everyone around the dining room table, place a large flat dish in the centre. In the dish scatter a good handful of raisins then pour on top a layer of brandy or cognac. Set fire to the brandy and dim the lights. Players take it in turns to pluck a raisin out of the burning liquid and eat it quickly down. For a more competitive edge to the game use larger dried fruit such as apricots, one of which has a lucky sixpence stuffed inside.

Equipment needed: plate, matches, raisins, brandy, address of nearest accident and emergency department

And so it goes

Oh those wacky early Christians.

December 13, 303 -
It the feast of St. Lucy (Santa Lucia) today. (Early depictions show Lucy offering her eyes on a platter; she is now the patron saint of Sicily and of Opticians.)

Because her extreme beauty attracted too many admirers, Lucy gouged her own eyes out (she had body issues). Miraculously they grew back. After refusing to marry, the Romans forced her to become a whore. She wasn't particularly thrilled with that choice, so she went for door number two and her Roman guards stabbed her to death but not before gouging out her eyes, again.



She wasn't particularly thrilled with that choice, so she went for door number two and her Roman guards stabbed her to death but not before gouging out her eyes, again.


I'm sorry to tell you but it's Friday the 13th.

If it gives you some comfort, today is the last Friday the 13th of this year.




In most large cities in the United States, many building don't have 13th floors. In Japan, they don't have 4th floors, because the word for four sounds similar to the word for DEATH! Some say that the modern basis for Friday the 13th phobia dates back to Friday, October 13, 1307.



On this date, Pope Clement in conjunction with the King Philip of France secretly ordered the mass arrest of all the Knights Templar in France. The Templars were terminated with extreme prejudice (burned to a crisp) for apostasy, idolatry, heresy, "obscene rituals" and homosexuality, corruption and fraud, and secrecy, never again to hold the power that they had held for so long.

Those wacky Knights were such party animals.

Nathaniel Lachenmeyer, author of 13: The Story of the World's Most Popular Superstition, suggests in his book that references to Friday the 13th were practically nonexistent before 1907; the popularity of the superstition must come from the publication of Thomas W. Lawson's successful novel (of it's day,) Friday, the Thirteenth. In the novel, a stock broker takes advantage of the superstition to create a Wall Street panic on Friday the 13th.


December 13, 1950 -
James Dean begins his career with an appearance in a Pepsi commercial on this date.



From the amount of energy all the performers have, it appears they were drinking the original Coke formula.


December 13, 1956 -
The comeback film for Ingrid Bergman, Anastasia, co-starring Yul Brynner, Helen Hayes, and Akim Tamiroff premiered in the US, on this date.



This movie was based on the story of Anna Anderson, a woman who claimed to be the Grand Duchess Anastasia. It was later discovered that, in fact, she was not who she claimed to be; the mystery was solved through DNA examination of a small piece of tissue cut from Anna in an operation years before.


December 13, 1975 -
Patti Smith released her debut studio album Horses on this date.



Produced by John Cale, Horses has since been viewed by critics as one of the greatest and most influential albums in the history of the American punk rock movement, as well as one of the greatest albums of all time.


December 13, 1975 -
Richard Pryor hosted NBC-TV's Saturday Night Live on this date.



Fearing Pryor would say things that were too offensive for television at the time, the show was placed on seven-second delay for the very first time



Pryor requested in the opening sketch that Garrett Morris say "Live from New York, it's Saturday Night!" instead of Chevy Chase. Morris' was the only cast member besides Chase to say it during the entire first season.



Gil Scott-Heron was the musical guest that evening.


December 13, 1985 -
The very silly comedy, base on the board game of the same name, Clue, starring Eileen Brennan, Tim Curry, Madeline Kahn, Christopher Lloyd, Michael McKean, Martin Mull, and Lesley Ann Warren premiered on this date. (Another fav of our daughters.)



Three endings were shot, and a different one shown at each theater. All three are included on video. The DVD, however, aside from all three endings, also offers the option to play the movie with one randomly selected ending. In some cities, the newspaper print ads indicated which version ("Ending A", "Ending B", or "Ending C") was being shown at each theater.


December 13, 1995 -
Ang Lee's superb adaptation of Jane Austen's 1811 novel, Sense and Sensibility, starring Emma Thompson (who also wrote the screenplay,) Kate Winslet, Hugh Grant, and Alan Rickman, opened in Canada on this date.



While working on the script, Emma Thompson's computer developed a problem and she was unable to locate the file. She took the computer to Stephen Fry, a good friend of Thompson's, who, after seven hours, finally managed to retrieve the script. This is why Stephen is thanked in the credits by the producers.


December 13, 1996 -
Cameron Crowe's romantic comedy, Jerry Maguire, starring Tom Cruise, Cuba Gooding Jr., Bonnie Hunt, and Renée Zellweger premiered on this date.



Jonathan Lipnicki showed up on the set one day telling everyone that "the human head weighs eight pounds". Writer, producer, and director Cameron Crowe liked it so much he wrote it into the script.


December 13, 2003 –
Shake it like a polaroid!

Outkast's single Hey Ya! hit #1 on the Billboard charts on this date.



Andre 3000 wrote the first version of the song around 1999, and it almost made it onto their 2000 album Stankonia. At the time the song was called Thank God For Mom And Dad. He started working on it again in 2002, doing lots of experimentation along the way. A lot of lyrics he wrote for the song didn't make the cut.


December 13, 2013 -
David O. Russell's comic take on the ABSCAM sting of the late 70's, American Hustle, starring Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Bradley Cooper, Jeremy Renner, and Jennifer Lawrence opened in limited release in the US on this date.



According to Christian Bale, much of the movie was improvised. So during the shooting of the film, he noted to writer and director David O. Russell, "You realize that this is going to change the plot greatly down track." To which Russell replied, "Christian, I hate plots. I am all about characters, that's it."


December 13, 2008 –
Beyonce's song, Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It) hit #1 on the Billboard charts on this date.



The video has become an internet phenomenon with thousands of homemade versions posted on YouTube. Beyoncé explained to The Sunday Times May 10, 2009 that the idea for the promo was a 1960s film of a Bob Fosse routine, Mexican Breakfast, which featured his wife, Gwen Verdon. She recalled; "I saw a video on YouTube. They had a plain background and it was shot on the crane; it was 360 degrees, they could move around. And I said, 'This is genius.' We kept a lot of the Fosse choreography and added the down-south thing - it's called J-setting, where one person does something and the next person follows. So it was a strange mixture, kind of like the song, which is almost like a nursery rhyme, the 'oh-oh-oh's, and the sinister chords. So it's like the most urban choreography, mixed with Fosse - very modern and very vintage. We'd spent all the budget on the video for (the previous single) If I Were a Boy, and with this song, we didn't even have a treatment. So, it's the least expensive video I've done. Not for a moment did I think, 'This is going to be a movement.'"


Frank wasn't the only Rat Packer who celebrated Christmas.


Today in History:
December 13, 1577 -
Sir Francis Drake set out on a three year (and not three hour) long journey around the world, on this date. He had started his career as a sailor in the slave trading business, but after some run-ins with the Spanish, he decided to devote his life to taking vengeance on the Spanish by disrupting their trade routes.



He became a semi-official pirate for Queen Elizabeth I, plundering Spanish ships, gathering intelligence about their naval activities and creating delicious little dessert cakes.


December 13, 1809 -
The first successful abdominal surgery procedure was performed in the US on this date. Dr. Ephraim McDowell removed a 22 pound (about 10 kg) tumor from the ovary of Jane Todd Crawford. Crawford had previously been misdiagnosed as being pregnant with twins. The surgery was performed without anesthetic or antiseptics, but Crawford made a complete and quick recovery.

(Now that you've gotten up off the floor, clutching you belly, as I had one of my many abdominal surgeries last year, you know I was when I first read about this,) McDowell was called the "father of the ovariotomy," after that and went on to perform similar surgeries, including a hernia repair for President James Polk.


December 13, 1913 -
The initial section of the Lincoln Highway, the first automobile road across United States, was dedicated on this date.



It ran from Newark, New Jersey, to Jersey City, New Jersey. On completion, the Lincoln Highway ran coast-to-coast from Times Square in New York City west to Lincoln Park in San Francisco.


December 13, 1928 -
The Clip-on tie was invented on this date. Productivity soars as time lost in tying knots is made up and accidental strangulation rates drop as fewer workers ties are caught in the gears.



Legend has it that it was a mortician who had too hard of a time tying ties onto his corpses.

Little know fact - the term, Dork, was also coined on this date.


December 13, 1962 -
NASA launches Relay I, the first active repeater communications satellite, aboard a Thor-Delta rocket from the Atlantic Missile Range in Cape Canaveral.

It would transmit its first test patterns on January 3, 1963, once its solar cells are fully charged. Once in service, it would transmit facsimile, telephone, television, and teleprinter signals.


December 13, 1972 -
Astronaut Gene Cernan climbed into his Lunar Module Challenger on the Moon and prepared to lift off on this date. He currently is the last man to set foot on the moon. Besides his footprints, the astronaut left his daughter's initials scrawled in the lunar dust.



The last official words on the moon, as Cernan climbed the ladder, were "God willing, we shall return," he said. What Cernan to his crew, as they prepared to launch from the lunar surface: "All right, let's get this mother out of here and go home."


December 13, 1973 -
Claude Vorilhon, former French race car driver, began the Rael movement in France on this date.

While commuting to his job as a sportswriter, he decided to drive past the office and stop at a nearby volcano in Auvergne. During his stop, Vorilhon saw the flashing red light of a space ship, which opened its hatch to reveal a green alien with longish dark hair. Once aboard the spaceship, he said he was entertained by voluptuous female robots and learned that the first human beings were created by aliens called Elohim, who cloned themselves.



Vorilhon said that he was instructed to take the name Rael and spread the news that humans were placed on Earth by extraterrestrials who had engineered our DNA. In 1997 Rael founded Clonaid, a company dedicated to cloning people. In 2013 the Raelian movement numbered about 90,000 members world-wide.

The French, they are a funny race.


December 13, 1989 -
Taylor Swift was born in West Reading, Pennsylvania on this date. She was named after musician James Taylor.



Swift's mother believed that a gender-neutral name would help forge a business career. Taylor Swift's maternal grandmother, Marjorie Finlay, was a professional opera singer, and inspired Taylor to become a singer. (Both the Caligari girls are hard core Swifties.)


December 13, 2003 -
Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s nine-month long run from the US military finally came to an end when he was discovered hiding in a hole just nine miles away from his hometown of Tikri, five months after his sons Uday and Kusay were killed in a raid in Mosul.



Following his capture, Saddam was put in Iraqi custody and charged with the deaths of nine villagers, the razing of farmlands, the wrongful arrest of almost 400 Dujail residents and the torture of women and children. He was sentenced to death.


Before you go - more useless trivia: Christmas trees are known to have been popular in Germany as far back as the sixteenth century.

In England, they became popular after Queen Victoria's husband Albert, who came from Germany, made a tree part of the celebrations at Windsor Castle.



In the United States, the earliest known mention of a Christmas tree is in the diary of a German who settled in Pennsylvania.

Don't even ask about the legacy of Prince Albert and his snug trousers.

And so it goes

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

They are so nice, they celebrate it twice

Today is Have a Bagel Day. as opposed to National Bagel Day which is January 15th.



Whichever day you celebrate, remember the salmon and a smear.


December 11, 1957 -
The movie Peyton Place, based on the novel by Grace Metalious, had its world premiere in Camden, Maine, on this date, where most of it had been filmed.



David Lynch and Mark Frost viewed this film to guide their creation of Twin Peaks. Both are concerned with the secrets and scandals of people in a small town, and both ultimately reveal the sexual abuse and exploitation of a young woman by a family member. Russ Tamblyn also appeared in both.


December 11, 1961 -
Please, Mr. Postman by the Marvelettes was released on this date



Marvin Gaye played drums on this song. He was 22 at the time and trying to break into the business.


December 11, 1968 –
Filming begins on The Rolling Stones‘ Rock And Roll Circus movie. Conceived by Mick Jagger, the event was comprised of two concerts on a circus stage and included such acts as John Lennon and his fiancée Yoko Ono performing as part of a supergroup called The Dirty Mac, along with Eric Clapton, Mitch Mitchell, Keith Richards, Jethro Tull and The Who, as well as clowns and acrobats.



Filmed at a studio in Wembley using an unusual hybrid type of camera, supporting both 16mm film and monochrome video. The idea was that TV production techniques could be used, with the cameramen framing shots on the video camera viewfinders, whilst a vision mixer inter-cut the camera feeds "on the fly", simultaneously controlling the film stop/start mechanisms in the cameras. Output was thus on film and could be easily edited, and prepared for final program sales. However the system was still in development and was unreliable. Equipment problems caused the tight filming schedule to overrun and the Stones finally went on stage in the small hours of the morning, after much delay. It was originally meant to be aired on the BBC, but the Rolling Stones withheld it because they were unhappy with their performance. The film was eventually released in 1996.


December 11, 1980 -
Hawaiian shirts and free mustache rides abound when Magnum PI, starring Tom Selleck, premiered on CBS-TV on this date.



This is one of a very small number of shows in which an actor "breaks the fourth wall" and looks right into the camera. Thomas Magnum does this on occasion when presented with a ridiculous situation.


December 11, 1982 –
Toni Basil's surprise hit Mickey reached No. 1 of the Billboard charts on this date.



This was originally recorded as Kitty by a group called Racey, which released it in 1979. In the original lyric, Kitty is a girl. Toni Basil changed the title from Kitty to Mickey and the gender from female to male. Basil choreographed the 1968 Monkees movie Head, but insists the song is not named after group member Micky Dolenz. She also says there's nothing dirty about the song - it's just a peppy tune about a girl who really likes a guy.


December 11, 1987 -
Greed is Good.

20th Century Fox released Oliver Stone's drama, Wall Street, starring Michael Douglas, Charlie Sheen, Martin Sheen, and Daryl Hannah on this date.



At the time, Michael Douglas was better known as a producer. Oliver Stone was warned that Douglas would micromanage the film and undermine Stone. Stone hired Douglas anyway, and Douglas did not micromanage.


December 11, 1981 -
The final film directed and written by Billy Wilder, Buddy Buddy, based on the french film film L'emmerdeur, starring Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau, Paula Prentiss, and Klaus Kinski, premiered on this date.



Two weeks into principal photography, co-writer/director Billy Wilder felt he had miscast the hit-man character with Walter Matthau, that the picture did not work with two comic leads, the Matthau part needed to be in a serious mold, like with a Clint Eastwood.


December 11, 1992 -
Walt Disney Pictures and Jim Henson Productions' musical comedy adaptation of Charles Dicken's A Christmas Carol, The Muppet Christmas Carol, directed by Brian Henson (in his feature directorial debut) and starring Michael Caine as Ebenezer Scrooge, alongside Muppet performers Dave Goelz, Steve Whitmire, Jerry Nelson, and Frank Oz, premiered on this date in the US.



This was the first major Muppet project after creator Jim Henson's death. The role of Kermit the Frog was handed down to Steve Whitmire. He said he was incredibly nervous about taking over such an iconic character. The night before he recorded Kermit's songs for the movie, he had a dream where he met Henson in a hotel lobby and told him how unsure he was. In the dream, Henson reassured Whitmire that the feeling would pass. After waking up, Whitmire was confident and able to do the part.


Another Guest Programmer


Today in History:
December 11, 1688 -
King James II attempting to flee London as the "Glorious Revolution" replaced him with King William (of Orange) and Queen Mary, threw the Great Seal of the Realm into the River Thames.

He was, however, caught in Kent. Having no desire to make James a martyr, the Prince of Orange let him escape on December 23, 1688. James was received by his cousin, Louis XIV, who offered him a palace and a generous pension.


December 11, 1882 -
Fiorello Enrico La Guardia, Mayor of New York for three terms from 1934 to 1945, was born on this date.



With a boundless enthusiasm and energy to match that of Teddy Roosevelt, La Guardia could be the last Mayor of NYC who really loved his job.


December 11, 1919 -
The citizens of Enterprise, Alabama, erected a monument to the boll weevil. The only monument dedicated to an agricultural pest!!

The invasive insect devastated their fields but forced residents to end their dependence on cotton and to pursue mixed farming and manufacturing.


December 11, 1931 -
Rita Moreno (Rosa Dolores Alverio,) winner of an Peabody, Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar, and a Tony, was born on this date.



She is currently one of only three PEGOT winners; she is the only Puerto Rican PEGOT winner.


December 11, 1936 -
Britain's King Edward VIII abdicated the throne in order to marry American divorcee Wallis Warfield Spencer Simpson. Edward VIII had been king of Great Britain and Ireland for less than a year when he abdicated the throne to marry "the woman I love."



After his abdication, Albert Frederick Arthur George Windsor became George VI, King of the United Kingdom and Edward was awarded the title Duke of Windsor by his brother, the king. Edward and Mrs. Simpson married on June 3, 1937.


The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) was created by the United Nations General Assembly on December 11, 1946, to provide emergency food and healthcare to children in countries that had been devastated by World War II.



UNICEF provides many types of assistance and help to children and mothers. It receives money from different governments and private persons. It works in almost all countries of the world.


December 11, 1964 -
Sam Cooke, popular singer, was shot to death by Bertha Franklin, manager of the Hacienda Motel in Los Angeles, California. Franklin claimed that he had threatened her, and that she killed him in self-defense.



The shooting was ultimately ruled to be a justifiable homicide, though there have been arguments that crucial details did not come out in court, or were buried afterward.


December 11, 1967 -
The Beatles' Apple Music signs its first group - Grapefruit, on this date.



With unwise business decisions like this, I'm sure the Beatles must have gone broke very shortly after this.


More Christmas Trivia:
Christmas decorating sends nearly 15,000 people to the ER.



In fact, the Consumer Product Safety Commission estimates that 14,700 people visit hospital emergency rooms each November and December from holiday-related decorating accidents. So please, be careful when you're putting up the holly and the ivy.

So now you know.


And on a personal note: Happy Birthday Julietta

(Hope you have a great one this year.)

And so it goes

Good ideas start with great coffee

Today is Suspended Coffee Day (Caffe Sospeso). Many Coffee shops around the world are reviving an old Neapolitan custom, which involves paying it forward with coffee. A customer orders one cup but pays the barista for two. This second cup - the "suspended coffee" - is served for free to someone who is down on their luck.

Suspended Coffee Day highlights this tradition and encourages people to take part in paying it forward, bringing awareness to the idea of supporting others in a thoughtful and collective way. It's a beautiful practice that blends generosity with the universal love of coffee, making it a fitting day to spread kindness and goodwill.


Today is National Lager Day. Let us celebrate the third most popular beverage after water and tea. I'm hoping it co-incidental, but suspicious of the fact that it is celebrated around the same time as Santa-con.



For those of you who need to know - Lager is one of the two main types of beer, the other being ale. The difference between lager and ale is that lager is fermented and conditioned at low temperatures while ale is brewed using a warm fermentation. Pale lager is the most widely consumed style of beer in the world. So drink responsibly, especially those of you participating in Santa-con this weekend.


On a more serious note, today is International Human Rights Day.

Every year on December 10th, the world celebrates Human Rights Day, the very day when, in 1948, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.



The Declaration consists of a preamble and 30 articles that set out a broad range of fundamental human rights and freedoms to which all of us, everywhere around the world, are entitled. It guarantees our rights without distinction of nationality, place of residence, gender, national or ethnic origin, religion, language, or any other status.


December 10, 1948 -
Another Preston Sturges Champagne cocktail laced with strychnine, Unfaithfully Yours, opened in the US on this date.



Even though it is widely hailed as a classic today, the film was something of a box office disappointment when released. The fantasy flashbacks were thought to be too experimental for it's time.


December 10, 1955 –
The Mighty Mouse Playhouse began a long-standing 'Saturday Morning Cartoon’ tradition on CBS-TV, on this date.





Terrytoons Studios produced 80 theatrical Mighty Mouse cartoons between 1942 to 1961, which were shown on this cartoon TV series on Saturday mornings. Each episode contained three Mighty Mouse theatrical cartoons and a one-shot one (especially with Heckle and Jeckle).


December 10, 1967 -
Julie Andrews!

Peter Cook and Dudley Moore in their first starring comedy, Bedazzled, opened in the US on this date.



Although Raquel Welch is featured in most of the promotional material for this movie, she was only on-screen for roughly seven minutes.


December 10, 1968 -
Carol Reed's musical adaptation of the Charles Dicken's classic, Oliver!, starring Ron Moody, Oliver Reed and Mark Lester, opened in the US on this date.



The whole of Bloomsbury Square in London was recreated on the Shepperton Studios backlot for the Who Will Buy sequence. In fact, the entire Shepperton Studios was given over to the production of Oliver!


December 10, 1974 -
Another Rankin/Bass animated holiday special The Year Without A Santa Claus premiered on ABC-TV on this date.

Another Rankin/Bass animated holiday special The Year Without A Santa Claus premiered on ABC-TV on this date.



The names of the reindeer are consistent with the Clement Moore poem and other sources. Vixen is the baby reindeer who takes Jingle & Jangle to Southtown (and gets sick). Dasher is the one who takes Santa down to Southtown and back. Finally, Blitzen takes Mrs. Claus to pick up Iggy & the Elves and then to visit the Mizer Brothers.


December 10, 1974 -
Nobody will ever notice that. Filmmaking is not about the tiny details. It's about the big picture



Ed Wood Jr., either the world's greatest visionary director or the worst filmmaker of all time, suffered a fatal heart attack on this date. At the time of his death, the industry newspaper, Variety, failed to run his obituary.


December 10, 1974 –
The classic disaster movie, Towering Inferno, opened in NYC on this date.



After seeing this film, novelist Roderick Thorp had a dream that same night about a man being chased through a skyscraper by gun-wielding assailants. This was the inspiration for his 1979 book Nothing Lasts Forever which eventually was made into the film Die Hard.


December 10, 1982 -
A paean to B movies, It Came from Hollywood, opened in the US on this date. (Do yourself a favor; find some time today to watch the whole film if you haven't seen it.)



Sadly this was never released on DVD. Paramount had planned to release the film on DVD in 2002. Due to copyright issues with several of the clips featured in the film, the release was ultimately canceled.


December 10, 1984 –
On a very cold night 40years ago, Francis Ford Coppola's Cotton Club opened in NYC. (I can remember waiting on line to see the film on the opening day at Radio City Music Hall.)



Although the film features several fictional murders, it is associated with one real-life murder. When Robert Evans was raising money for the film, he became associated with a promoter named Roy Radin. Radin was reportedly murdered on May 13, 1983, but his body was not found for several weeks. Evans was not accused of murder but was implicated in the investigation because he was dealing with Radin and Karen Jacobs-Greenberger, who introduced Radin to Evans. She was convicted of ordering the murder of Radin and is serving a life sentence for the crime.


It been 40 years since Do They Know It's Christmas, the charity single by the all-star group Band Aid, was released.



As of the last check, The Band Aid/ Live Aid initiatives have raised over $250 million dollars. Not bad for basically a very crappy tune.


Another ACME Holiday Video Celebration


Today in History:
December 10, 1520 -
The heretic Martin Luther burnt the papal bull (Exsurge Domine), on this date, issued by Leo X, demanding an end to his heresies. Luther had published 95 points against the practice of granting indulgences, and the Catholic Church only had 94 points in favor of them.

Although technically he was the winner, Luther was subsequently excommunicated.

Luther went away mad and started his own religion.


December 10, 1830 -
Fame is a bee.
It has a song —
It has a sting —
Ah, too, it has a wing.



Poet Emily Dickinson was born in Amherst, Massachusetts on this date. Only about 10 of her poems were published in her lifetime, and those were submitted for publication without her permission. After her death in 1886, more than 1,800 of her poems, which she had bound together in bundles, were discovered and published.


December 10, 1848 -
Napoleon III, Louis Napoleon Bonaparte (nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte), was elected president of France. By 1852, he dismantled the Republic and replaced it with the Second Empire of France, with himself as emperor.

This is what comes from being a Napoleon - give them an inch and they're declaring themselves emperor.


December 10, 1936 -
Edward VIII, signed the letter of abdication to the English throne (which took effect on the next day,) to marry the twice divorced, horsey faced (and possibly transvestite) - the woman he loved on this date.

Many in the government are secretly relieved, fearing they may have bet against Mrs. Simpson when she ran at the Royal Ascot.


December 10, 1954 -
The patent for the first commercial, digital and programmable autonomous machine (U.S. Patent No. 2,988,237) was filed today. The robot was built by American inventor George Devol and named the Unimate.



It was not made to look like a human, but was instead designed for use, having just one arm and one hand.


December 10, 1954 -
To determine whether or not a pilot can safely eject from an aircraft traveling at supersonic speeds, Lieutenant Colonel John Paul Stapp, a flight surgeon, rides in a rocket sled that accelerates to 632mph in just five seconds then stops in just 1.25 seconds at Holloman Air Force Base, in New Mexico, on this date.



The trip exposes him to forty Gs, the equivalent of a car crashing into a brick wall at 120 mph. This was one crazy/ brave SOB.


December 10, 1958 -
Krishna Venta (born Francis Herman Pencovic) died in Chatsworth, California in a suicide bombing when two disgruntled former followers (Peter Duma Kamenoff and Ralph Muller) who, although never offering any documentary evidence to support their claims, charged that Venta had both mishandled cult funds and been intimate with their wives.

Venta's remains are only ever identified through dental records.

This is what comes from the laying on of hands with cult members' wives.


December 10, 1967 -
Soul singer Otis Redding plus four members of the Bar-Kays were killed when his airplane crashes into Lake Monona near Madison, Wisconsin on this date.



So, poor Otis was laid out all over the dock of the bay.


December 10, 1973 –
CBGB’s opened in lower Manhattan, in New York City. Named for Country, Blue Grass, and Blues, on this date. The club originally intends to feature those musical styles, but becomes a mecca for punk rock and New Wave bands.



There were two rules: 1) bands had to move their own equipment, and 2) bands had to play mostly original songs – no cover bands – because the owner couldn’t afford to pay ASCAP royalty fees.


December 10, 1993 -
Adolf Hitler was baptized by proxy into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in their London temple on this date. Mormons also continued to vicariously baptism victims of the Holocaust over the strenuous objections of various Jewish groups such as the Simon Wiesenthal Center (even Simon Wiesenthal has had a baptism performed for himself after his death.)

There's nothing worse than finding out you've become a Mormon by proxy (especially if you're already dead and in heaven.)


December 10, 2013 -
The Higgs Boson is a particle that gives mass to other particles. It is sometimes referred to as the "God Particle." It was named after Peter Higgs, one of six physicists who, in 1964, proposed the mechanism that suggested the particle.



On this date, Peter Higgs and François Englert, were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for their work and prediction.

And so it goes