Now more than ever

The United Nations General Assembly designated this date, the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, as International Holocaust Remembrance Day.



On this annual day of commemoration, the UN urges every member state to honor the six million Jewish victims of the Holocaust and millions of other victims of Nazism and to develop educational programs to help prevent future genocides.


It's Punch the Clock day.

I have no idea why anyone would want to celebrate the soul-numbing activity of having to punch into work.



So instead, let's listen to a deep cut from the Elvis Costello album Punch the Clock, Charm School.


January 27, 1918 -
Tarzan of the Apes, the first Tarzan film, premiered at the Broadway Theater in NYC on this date.



Edgar Rice Burroughs sold the film rights for Tarzan of the Apes to the National Film Corporation on June 6, 1916. He received a record $5,000 cash advance on royalties, $50,000 in company stock and 5% of gross receipts.


January 27, 1948 -
Consumer magnetic tape recorders were sold for the first time on this date. Magnetic tape recorders had been developed at the same time as steel tape recorders, but it had taken slightly longer to perfect the technology.



In place of a steel wire, magnetic tape recorders use a thin magnetized coating on narrow strips of plastic. Ampex and 3M would have the most influence in the growth of magnetic tape recorders.


January 27, 1956 -
Elvis Presley released the first of his 14 records in a row that sold more than a million copies, Heartbreak Hotel, on this date.



It climbed to the top of the pop chart reaching #1 in April and spending eight weeks at the top. The success of Heartbreak Hotel began Elvis' period as the most famous American musician and teen idol.


January 27, 1976 -
Laverne and Shirley, a spinoff from Happy Days, starring Penny Marshall as Laverne De Fazio and Cindy Williams as Shirley Feeney, premiered on ABC-TV on this date.



Various cast members from Happy Days have talked about the vicious fights next door on set of Laverne and Shirley, so loud that they would listen with glasses to the wall. Garry Marshall has said in interviews that Cindy Williams and his sister, Penny Marshall, were immature during the production of Laverne and Shirley and did not handle stardom well, treating their coworkers in an abusive manner, and acting like prima donnas, endlessly fighting about who got more lines, etc.


January 27, 1984 -
Cyndi Lauper released the second single, Time After Time, from her debut album She's So Unusual on this date.



Cyndi Lauper wrote this song with Rob Hyman, who also sang backup. Hyman was in a Philadelphia band with Eric Bazilian and Rick Chertoff. When Rick took a job as a staff producer at Columbia Records, he kept in touch with Rob and Eric, who formed The Hooters. Chertoff was assigned to produce Lauper, a then-unknown artist. Lauper's band, Blue Angel, had broken up, so she needed musicians. Rick suggested Rob and Eric, then brought her to see The Hooters at a club called The Bottom Line.


January 27, 1987 -
One of Woody Allen's favorite films, Broadway Danny Rose, starring Woody Allen, Mia Farrow and Nick Apollo Forte premiered in the US on this date.



Woody Allen's manager and producer, Jack Rollins, was the inspiration for the Danny Rose character. Rollins appears in the movie as himself.


January 27, 1984 -
The Mike Nichols' drama, Silkwood, starring Meryl Streep, Cher, and Kurt Russell, premiered in the US on this date.



Cher was nervous about meeting Meryl Streep for the first time. "I thought it was going to be like having an audience with the Pope," she said. Streep, however, immediately put her at ease. "The first day on location," Cher told People magazine, "Meryl just came up, threw her arms around me and said, 'I'm so glad you're here.' She's all communication and warmth and friendship with a great sense of humor."


January 27, 1991 -
The little remembered TV series, Davis Rules, starring Randy Quaid and Jonathan Winters premiered on ABC TV on this date. (The series moved to CBS TV for its' second and final season.)



The show premiered right after the Super Bowl in 1991.


Today's moment of Zen


Today in History:
January 27, 1756 -
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Austrian musical genius, composer and fart joke lover, whose works included The Marriage of Figaro and The Magic Flute, was born on this date.



When Mozart died in 1791, probably of heart disease, he was buried in an unmarked pauper's grave.


January 27, 1832 –
... One of the secrets of life is that all that is really worth the doing is what we do for others.







Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, Anglican deacon, children's author, mathematician, and photographer (child pornographer?) was born on this date.


January 27, 1859 -
Kaiser Wilhelm II, (Queen Victoria's first grandchild and first cousin to both King George V and Tsar Nicholas II) emperor who ruled Germany during World War I but was forced to abdicate in 1918, was born on this date.



Oh, those wacky royals.


January 27, 1888 -
National Geographic Society was incorporated on this date after having been founded in Washington, D.C. two weeks prior by a group of well known men 'to increase and diffuse geographic knowledge'.



The 33 men who originally met and formed the National Geographic Society were a diverse group of geographers, explorers, teachers, lawyers, cartographers, military officers and financiers. Nine months after its creation, the Society published its first issue of National Geographic magazine.


January 27, 1900 -
Hyman Rickover, American admiral who is considered the "Father of the Atomic Submarine", was born on this date.



Creating a detail-focused pursuit of excellence to a degree previously unknown, Rickover redirected the United States Navy’s ship propulsion, quality control, personnel selection, and training and education, and has had far reaching effects on the defense establishment and the civilian nuclear energy field.


On January 21, 1901, the great maestro Joe Green (Giuseppe Verdi was merely his stage name) suffered a stroke while staying at the Grand Hotel et de Milan, in Milan. So revered was the composer that horses hooves were wrapped in blankets to muffle their noise as they passed the hotel where he rested.



Verdi gradually grew more feeble and died six days later, on this date. To date, his funeral remains the largest public assembly of any event in the history of Italy.


In popular American folklore, the British Mr. Thomas Crapper was the man who invented and gave his name to the flush toilet. Unfortunately, there is little historical evidence to support Mr. Crapper as anything but a friendly British plumber.



Thomas Crapper died on January 27, 1910. To honor this day and the spirit of the man, we can choose to embrace the legend of Thomas Crapper.


January 27, 1967 -
A launchpad flash fire in the Apollo I capsule killed the astronauts Gus Grissom, Edward H White and Roger B Chaffee at Cape Canaveral on this date.



An investigation indicated that a faulty electrical wire inside the Apollo I command module was the probable cause of the fire.


January 27, 1967 -
Negotiated and drafted under the auspices of the United Nations, United States, United Kingdom, and Soviet Union signed the Outer Space Treaty (formally the Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies,) in Washington, D.C., banning deployment of nuclear weapons in space, and limiting use of the Moon and other celestial bodies to peaceful purposes, on this date. The treaty went into effect on October 10, 1967.



Key provisions of the Outer Space Treaty include prohibiting nuclear weapons in space; limiting the use of the Moon and all other celestial bodies to peaceful purposes; establishing that space shall be freely explored and used by all nations; and precluding any country from claiming sovereignty over outer space or any celestial body.


January 27, 1973 -
North and South Vietnam, the Viet Cong, and the United States signed the Paris Peace Accord on this day, ending one of the longest and most unpopular wars in American history.



Despite a ceasefire that had been put into effect a few days earlier, the last American troop to die in Vietnam was killed just 11 hours before the treaty was signed.


January 27, 1992 -
Candidate Bill Clinton and Gennifer Flowers mutually accuse each other of lying about whether or not they had a 12 year affair on this date.



Oh, it's hard to keep the old hound dog on the porch.


January 27, 2010 –
Howard Zinn, the Boston University historian and political activist who was an early opponent of US involvement in Vietnam and whose books, such as A People's History of the United States, inspired young and old to rethink the way textbooks present the American experience, died on this date.



Go out and buy his book, if not for a kid you know, buy it for yourself.



And so it goes

Let no one despise your youth

Today is the Feast Day of St. Timothy. St. Timothy is known to be the patron saint of those who suffer from stomach aches or other intestinal disorders (he was prescribed 'a little wine' for his own stomach troubles.) Timothy is famous for being the companion and secretary to St. Paul. One of the requirements of the job was circumcision; Timothy, ever pious and eager for the job, immediately went out and did the job himself, (remember that the next time you are hiring administrative assistants.)

Timothy, in his later life, become the first bishop of Ephesus. While he was there, he objected to the parading around of a nude statue of the goddess Diana in celebration of the festival of Katagogian, which seems odd as Timothy was Greek himself and seeing nude statues of Greek goddesses should have been no big deal. It apparently was a big deal to the locals of Ephesus and he was stoned to death on this date.


Today is the 77th (or 78th, I've seen it referred to both ways) annual Republic Day in India. Usually spectators line up to watch dancers from all over the nation gather in New Delhi every year on this day to dance in the huge National Arena and all along a five mile parade route, (not so much, this year.)



It's Australia Day today (formerly known as Foundation Day in Australia) as well and commemorates the establishment of the first settlement at Port Jackson, now part of Sydney, in 1788. (The fleet was led by Captain Arthur Philip, who went on to establish the Colony of New South Wales, the first penal colony in Australia.) The day was filled with drinking, merriment and sodomy -





Unfortunately, more and more Australians are reconsidering the holiday and are now beginning to view it as a 'Day of Mourning' because of the massacres and treatment Indigenous people experienced at the hands of the British settlers after the arrival of the First Fleet.



On January 26, 1979, Le Freak was on the top of the American charts.



It's nice to think there's a connection.


January 26, 1967 -
The Star Trek episode, Tomorrow is Yesterday in which, the crew of the Enterprise is flung back in time to the sixties, where they must correct the damage they have caused to the timeline, premiered on this date on NBC TV.

This is one of the rare occasions in which it can be seen that the middle finger on actor James Doohan's (Scotty) right hand is missing. He took great pains to conceal its absence during the series, but he is leaning on that hand - with only three fingers visible - when he informs Captain Kirk that the engines can be repaired, but that there is nowhere for them to go in the 20th century.


January 26, 1970 -
Simon and Garfunkle's fifth and last studio album, Bridge Over Troubled Waters, was released on this date. The album went on to be the biggest selling ever for Columbia Records.



The title song, Bridge Over Troubled Waters, is one of the most-covered songs ever. In the '70s, so many people sang a version that it became a bit of a joke, the punch line being that most renditions were terrible, as the song is very hard to sing with any competence. Years later, the Lynyrd Skynyrd song Free Bird reached a similar level of musical ubiquity.


January 26, 1973 -
Elton John's sixth studio album, Don't Shoot Me I'm Only the Piano Player, was released on this date. It was his second straight No. 1 album in the US.



According to Elton John: The Definitive Biography, here's how the album got its title: While in Los Angeles, Elton was introduced to the legendary comedian Groucho Marx. They hit it off, but Groucho was always giving Elton a hard time about his name, insisting that he must have it backwards and really be John Elton. After Groucho refused to lay off the name thing at a party, Elton threw up his hands and said jokingly: "Don't shoot me, I'm just the piano player."


January 26, 1974 –
Ringo Starr's song, You’re Sixteen, hit #1 on this date.



Richard Perry, who worked with Carly Simon, Barbra Streisand, Ray Charles and many other stars, produced this track. He said that producing Ringo's album was the "greatest thrill" of his career.


January 26, 1979 -
The sitcom McLean Stevenson left M*A*S*H for, Hello, Larry, created by Dick Bensfield and Perry Grant, premiered on NBC TV, on this date. (TV Guide ranked the sitcom #12 on their 50 Worst Shows of All Time in 2002.)



Since it was cancelled, the show has become a metaphor for low-quality and failure. It has also been held up as an example of how a show can be doomed by network interference, retooling and time slot shifting.


January 26, 1979 -
Turnabout, a sitcom developed by Steven Bochco and Michael Rhodes, and starring John Schuck and Sharon Gless, premiered on NBC TV, on this date.



It lasted seven episodes, before being cancelled due to poor ratings. This was in part due to airing after the poorly rated Hello, Larry, and competing with the CBS hit Dallas.


January 26, 1979 -
Dukes of Hazzard premiered on CBS television with One Armed Bandits - (A shipment of slot machines is hijacked.)



High comedy indeed.


January 26, 1980 -
Three months after the 1979 release of his second album, simply-titled Prince, Prince made his debut on American Bandstand on this date.



While he delivered confident performances of I Wanna Be Your Lover and Why You Wanna Treat Me So Bad, the 'shy' artist struggled to answer Dick Clark’s questions.


January 26, 1994 -
The pilot episode of Babylon 5, Midnight on the Firing Line premiered on TNT Network on this date.



Michael O'Hare's struggles with schizophrenia caused him to miss an increasing amount of work as the first season progressed. Creator J. Michael Straczynski offered to hold production so O'Hare could get the help he needed. O'Hare refused, feeling it wouldn't be fair for the cast and crew to be left without work for so long. He and Straczynski mutually agreed to have O'Hare leave at the end of the season. Bruce Boxleitner replaced O'Hare, and Straczynski used the "trap door" storyline at the beginning of the second season to explain Sinclair's absence. He also honored O'Hare's request to keep the real reason for his departure a secret until after O'Hare died in October 2012.


January 26, 2001 -
The Columbia Pictures film The Wedding Planner, starring Jennifer Lopez, Matthew McConaughey, and Alex Rocco, premiered in the U.S. on this date.



Jennifer Love Hewitt was developing a separate film with the same premise for her to star in but was forced to cancel the project when this film was released.


Word of the Day


Today in History:
January 26, 1885 -
General Charles George “Chinese” Gordon (Charlton Heston), an extremely popular and influential figure in the British Empire and governor-general of Sudan, was killed on the palace steps in the garrison at Khartoum by the forces of Muhammad Ahmed, El Mahdi on this date.



Unfortunately for Gordon, immediate after he was stabbed to death, he was decapitated and his head was paraded around for several hours until it was presented as a trophy to Muhammad Ahmed.


January 26, 1913 –
Jim Thorpe, the World's Greatest Athlete, relinquished his 1912 Olympic medals for being a professional athlete. He was paid for playing two seasons of semi-professional baseball before competing in the Olympics, thus violating the amateur rules at that time.



His Olympic medals were reinstated posthumously by an act of Congress in 1983.


January 26, 1932 -
Winston Churchill received the greatest doctor’s note during the 1930s, on this date.

Besides defiant hand gestures, iconic speeches, cigars and dapper hats, Winston Churchill is also renowned for his love of alcohol. Whiskey in particular. In 1931, Churchill was involved in a car accident which left him with chest pain, as well as having bouts of depression to contend with. Because of this, he was granted a Doctor’s note in 1932, by Otto C. Pickhardt (clearly an associate of  Dr. Hugo Z. Hackenbush,) for his time in the United States This allowed him drink an “indefinite” amount of alcohol for his duration of time in the Prohibition-era United States.


January 26, 1958 -
Ellen DeGeneres, actress, comedian and former Cover Girl spokes model, was born on this date.



So kids remember, while it's not OK to ignore your staff being abused, it doesn't suck to while away your retirement in a multi-million dollar estate.


January 26, 1961 -
President Kennedy appointed Janet Travell as his personal physician, making her the first female presidential physician (as well as possibly the only woman he did not sleep with) on this date.



It was later found that she prescribed over five painkillers to the president at one time, as well as a variety of sleep aids and orthopedic shoes. The real original Dr. Feelgood.


January 26, 1962 -
Mafia boss Charles Lucky Luciano died of natural causes at the Naples airport. On the day of his fatal heart attack, Luciano had plans to sell the rights of his life's story to a movie maker. Luciano dropped dead as he was about to shake hands. The Mob disliked the idea and had tried unsuccessfully to change his mind. It has been hypothesized that Luciano's heart attack was a result of poisoning by the Mafia.



He was buried in St. John's Cemetery in Queens, New York after a federal court ruled his burial on United States soil could not be blocked on the grounds that a corpse is not a citizen of any country and is therefore not subject to immigration control or deportation laws.


January 26,1979 -
70-year-old multibillionaire Nelson Rockefeller was stricken by a massive heart attack while giving dictation to his 27-year-old research assistant, Megan Marshack on this date. Some time after that event, Marshack had called her friend, news reporter Ponchitta Pierce, to the townhouse and it was Pierce who phoned 911 approximately an hour after the heart attack.



Much speculation went on in the press regarding a personal relationship between Rockefeller and Marshack. Rockefeller's will left Marshak $50,000 and the deed to a Manhattan townhouse.


January 26, 1984 -
A magnesium flash bomb at Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles ignited Michael Jackson’s hair during the filming of a Pepsi television commercial, causing third-degree scalp burns.



It is later reveals that unscrupulous doctors prescribe a full but highly unorthodox regiment of pedophilia to ease the singer’s wounds.


January 26, 1996 -
Insane madman millionaire John E. Du Pont shot Olympic wrestler David Schultz three times, killing him on this date. A two day police standoff follows at the Foxcatcher estate and wrestling compound, with SWAT teams biding their time under the assumption that Du Pont, an expert marksman, possessed an arsenal at his disposal (see Foxcatcher.)



Mr. Du Pont later died in prison. Perhaps Mr. Du Pont has gone to a better place where greasing yourself up and rolling around a mat with another person in nothing but a jock strap or a unitard is not considered a crime against nature.


January 26, 1998 -
U.S. President Bill Clinton denied, on television, having had sexual relations with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky.



The president must have skipped class that day.


January 26, 2004 -
A decomposing sperm whale exploded while in transport in Tainan City, Taiwan on this date. The whale was being moved to a laboratory for study when a critical build-up of gas caused it to explode, covering people and shop fronts in Tainan City with whale viscera.



Though decomposing whales are regularly exploded with dynamite to clear beaches, it is thought to be the first time a whale exploded in a city. You may have had a bad day but you never had to go home to change because you were covered in whale viscera.



And so it goes

The Snow Apocalypse is upon us

But fear not - There are 54 days until spring begins.



If that doesn't float your boat, it's National Irish Coffee Day


January 25, 1921 -

The play R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots) by Karel Capek premieres at the National Theater in Prague, Czechoslovakia, on this date. The play marks the first use of the term “robot,” which Capek coined from the Czech word “robota,” which is the word for the labor serfs were required to perform on their masters’ land.

To celebrate the anniversary, a robot in a factory in Flint, Michigan, in this date in 1979, killed an employee, Robert Williams. Mr Williams was struck in the head by a mechanical arm, trying to speed up retrievals from a storage space, became the first human ever killed by a robot.


January 25, 1949 -

The first Emmy Awards, which were devoted solely to local Los Angeles programming, were held on this date, at the Hollywood Athletic Club.



The very first Emmy, for Outstanding Personality, went to Shirley Dinsdale, a 20-year-old ventriloquist from UCLA, star of the children's show Judy Splinters—named after her talking puppet and broadcast on local station KTLA.


January 25, 1961 -
Walt Disney's 101 Dalmatians, premiered at Radio City Music Hall in New York City on this date.



The birth of the puppies actually happened to the author Dodie Smith. Her dalmatians had 15 puppies, one was born lifeless and her husband revived it. However, they sold most of them, and kept only a small number.


January 25, 1964 -
The Beatles scored their first No.1 best seller in the US when I Want To Hold Your Hand reached the top of the Cash Box Magazine music chart, on this date.



The Fab Four would eventually rack up 25 No.1's in America.


January 25, 1970 -
Robert Altman's Oscar winning film starring Donald Sutherland and Elliott Gould, M*A*S*H, premiered in NYC on this date.



Robert Altman said that during filming, Elliott Gould and Donald Sutherland together went to the studio and complained that Altman was filming too much of the secondary characters. They requested that he be removed from the film, but the studio refused. After the film was completed and received its accolades, only Elliott Gould confessed the matter to Altman. As a result, he received parts in other Altman pictures, whereas Robert Altman never cast Donald Sutherland again.


January 25, 1985 -
John Schlesinger's spy drama, The Falcon and the Snowman, starring, Timothy Hutton and Sean Penn, premiered on this date.



In 1986, this movie became associated with one of the most famous hacking incidents in television history. On the night of April 27, 1986, a Florida satellite TV dealer named John MacDougall was working late at Central Florida Teleport which up-links pay cable services to satellites. Before his shift ended, he pointed the dish directly upwards toward the location of HBO's Galaxy 1 satellite and for four and a half minutes, East Coast subscribers who has been watching The Falcon and the Snowman saw a message on a colored test pattern which read: GOOD EVENING HBO FROM CAPTAIN MIDNIGHT $12.95/MONTH? NO WAY! [SHOWTIME/MOVIE CHANNEL BEWARE!]. MacDougall had performed the stunt as a protest of satellite subscribers being forced to pay higher fees than regular cable subscribers. He turned himself in, was charged a $5,000 fine and placed on one year probation.


Another album in the discount bin at The ACME Record Shop today


Today in History:
January 25, 1759 -
It's Robert Burns' birthday and people will be celebrating with a Burns Supper.



The Burns Supper is eaten all across Scotland each year on the anniversary of the national poet's birth. It consists of haggis and whiskey. It is customary for the host to read Burns' Ode to a Haggis at the dinner table, presumably as a diversionary tactic.


January 25, 1924 -
The first Winter Olympics opened on this date in Chamonix, France.



Prior to this event, figure skating and ice hockey had been events at the Summer Olympics. Few, if any, of the athletes survived those winter sports during the Summer Olympics, as the rinks continually melted. And you don't want to know about the injuries sustained during nude hockey games.


January 25, 1927 -
Benjamin Kubelsky married Sadye Marks (Marcowitz) on this day.

Sadye changed her name to Mary Livingstone and joined her new husband's act. Back in 1921, Kubelsky had once again changed his name from Ben K. Benny to Jack Benny.


January 25, 1927 -
Antonio Carlos Jobim, composer and primary force behind the creation of the bossa nova style, was born on this date.







If you are in your 50's or 60's, you probably wouldn't have been born without the help of this guy - go ask your parents.


January 25, 1938 -
Etta James, blues, soul, R&B, rock 'n roll, gospel and jazz singer and songwriter, was born on this date.







Pour yourself a stiff double and remember this great singer.


January 25, 1947 -
Anita Pallenberg, model, actress, fashion designer,



bathtub companion to Mick Jagger and bed mate companion to Keith Richards, was born on this date.


January 25, 1947 -
Mobster Al Capone died in Florida on this date, having only recently been released from Alcatraz, due to his declining health (his mind gone from long untreated syphilis.)



For the wages of sin is death


January 25, 1960 -
It's hard to pinpoint the moment you feel grown up.

Diana Barrymore, Drew's aunt, committed suicide by taking a combination of sleeping pills and alcohol on this date.




Go out and rent The Bad and the Beautiful (the Lana Turner character is based on Diana.)


January 25, 1961 –
President Kennedy held the first live presidential press conference on this date. It was viewed by an estimated 65 million people.



By the time of his death in November 1963, Kennedy had held 64 news conferences, an average of one every 16 days.


January 25, 1964 -
Echo 2, a big balloon satellite designed for collaborative communications experiments with the Soviet Union, was launched on this day. The 13-story satellite was positioned about 800 miles above South Africa. Echo 2 was the second busiest and the heaviest of all satellites created up until this time.



It was constructed of mostly plastic with an aluminum foil skin and weight about 535 pounds. Echo 2 would be spotted every so often, as announced by NASA, who encouraged people to look out for it.


January 25, 1971 -
Charles Manson and three of his followers were convicted in Los Angeles of the Tate and LaBianca murders on this date.



All were sentenced to the gas chamber, with sentences commuted to life imprisonment when the death penalty was temporarily abolished.


January 25, 1971 -
Idi Amin Dada, everybody's favorite tyrant, comes to power in Uganda on this date.

Forest Whitaker won a Golden Globe award, a BAFTA, the Screen Actors' Guild award for Best Actor (Drama), and the Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of this cannibal.


January 25, 1980 -
Ex-Beatle and pothead, Paul McCartney, after being detained for smuggling approximately 8 ounces (200 g) of pot into Japan, was released from Tokyo jail and deported without charge, on this date.



Kids let this be a lesson to you all - Pot is bad and you should never be carrying your stash on you if you are that wealthy.


January 25, 1990 -
Avianca Flight 52 ran out of fuel and crashed in Cove Neck, N.Y. on this date.



73 of the 161 people aboard were killed.


January 25, 1995 -
Hey, the world almost ended on this date and you probably didn't even know it: Russia almost launched a nuclear missile at a Norwegian research rocket after mistaking it for a US missile.



The event, known as the Norwegian Rocket Incident, highlighted remaining Cold War tensions, despite the fact that the war had officially ended four years earlier.


January 25, 2017 -
Take chances, make mistakes. That's how you grow. Pain nourishes your courage. You have to fail in order to practice being brave.



Mary Tyler Moore, TV icon passed away on this date.



And so it goes

If you can't control your peanut butter, you can't expect to control your life.

Its National Peanut Butter Day. By law, any product labeled “peanut butter” in the United States must be at least 90 percent peanuts, (don't ask about the other 10%.) Boldly celebrate the lowly legume Arachis hypogaea, (except for the 1.5% of US students allergic to peanuts.) Former President Bill Clinton says one of his favorite sandwiches is peanut butter and banana; also reported to have been the favorite of Elvis.



Women and children prefer creamy peanut butter, while most men opt for chunky. People living on the East Coast prefer creamy peanut butter, while those on the West Coast prefer the crunchy style.

Go figure.


January 24, 1927 -
Alfred Hitchcock's first film, The Pleasure Garden, went into general release on this date in England. The film is often overshadowed by Hitchcock's later masterpieces, but it was definitely a significant milestone in his early career.



Although shot in 1925, and shown to the British press in March 1926, the film wasn't actually released in the UK until after The Lodger, his third movie. The film was a massive hit in 1927.


January 24, 1939 –
George Stevens' adaption of Rudyard Kipling's poem, Gunga Din, starring Cary Grant, Victor McLaglen, Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and Sam Jaffe premiered in Los Angeles on this date.



The film was made before support for Indian independence became a cause célèbre in the United States during World War II. Upon release, a campaign was launched by the Indian magazine Filmindia against what it called misrepresentation of Indian characters in the film and the displaying of insensitivity towards Hindu customs. Following riots in India and Malaya, the film was withdrawn by the censors in India.


January 24, 1940 -
John Ford's film version of John Steinbeck's novel, The Grapes of Wrath, starring Henry Fonda, premiered in New York City on this date.



Prior to filming, producer Darryl F. Zanuck sent undercover investigators out to the migrant camps to see if John Steinbeck had been exaggerating about the squalor and unfair treatment meted out there. He was horrified to discover that, if anything, Steinbeck had actually downplayed what went on in the camps.


January 24, 1975 -
The Norman Lear developed TV adaptation of Lanford Wilson's 1973 off-Broadway play, Hot L Baltimore, starring Richard Masur, Conchata Ferrell, James Cromwell, Al Freeman, Jr., & Charlotte Rae, premiered on ABC, on this date.



The series garnered controversy due to its cast of characters, which included two prostitutes, an illegal immigrant, and a gay couple (one of network TV's first, in fact), leading ABC to run a disclaimer before the show started.


January 24, 1991 -
The Cure taped their MTV Unplugged special at Limehouse TV Studios in London, on this date.



The acoustic set includes an alternate version of their new song ,A Letter To Elise. Audience members are also given kazoos to replace the synthesizer riffs on The Walk.


January 24, 2011 -
Adele released her second studio album 21 on this date.



The album went on to be the biggest selling album worldwide of original material (and second biggest overall album) released since 2000.

Don't forget to tune in to The ACME Eagle Hand Soap Radio Hour today


Today in History:
January 24, 41 -
Shortly after declaring himself a god, Roman emperor and crackpot Caligula was assassinated by his bodyguards on this date. His last words apparently were, "I am still alive! Strike again."



Yeah, yeah, I know you know that the Roman Emperor Caligula made his horse a senator and a god, married his sister, slept with the horse, slept with the potted plants ...



I guess this guy got more unnatural things done in a day then most of us do in a lifetime.


January 24, 1848 -
Gold was discovered by carpenter James Wilson Marshall at his partner Johann August Sutter's sawmill on the South Fork of the American River, near Coloma, California, starting the California Gold Rush on this date.



According to the Gold Institute, less than two million ounce's of gold were mined during the height of the California Gold Rush in 1849.


January 24, 1908 -
The first Boy Scout troop was organized in England on this date, by its founder, Robert Baden-Powell, a man who enjoyed seeing and photographing young boys swimming, just a little too much.



I wonder what Baden-Powell would think (a noted repressed homosexual) now that girls and openly gay boys (but not transgender boys) can join the scouts.


January 24, 1922 –
Christian K. Nelson of Onawa, Iowa was granted a patent (US patent No.#1404539) for his ice cream dessert covered in chocolate ( The ‘Eskimo Pie’.)



Mr Nelson invented Eskimo Pie, America's first chocolate covered ice cream bar, in his home laboratory in 1920. The ice cream bar quickly rose in popularity in America. By 1922, Nelson was earning $2000 per day in royalties on his product.



In 2020, Dreyer’s Grand Ice Cream, joined a substantial number of well-known brands in their decisions to rename racially insensitive brands and the ice cream treat was renamed Edy's Pie.


January 24, 1925 -
A motion picture of a solar eclipse was recorded by the United States Navy from the dirigible USS Los Angeles, about nineteen miles east of Montauk Point, Long Island, New York on this date.



It is the first time a dirigible has been used for astronomical observations in the U.S.


January 24, 1935 -
The Gottfried Krueger Brewing Company of New Jersey introduced the first canned beer, Krueger Cream Ale. The new, three-piece steel and tin cans containing this drink had no pull tab; they were opened by a special kind of tool called a church key.



This new method of packaging beer was an instant success and other breweries quickly followed as they noted that the new cans were more cost effective, easier to handle and took up less space than bottles.


January 24, 1941 -
I may have a little bit of a talent for music, but I've learnt to tap into my own self when I write. When I put the drill bit inside my heart, sometimes I come up with something light and frothy, sometimes with something deep and painful, but it's great to connect with the audience..









Neil Diamond, singer, songwriter, (such a nice boy,) who had a number of world wide hits hits over three decades and still tours successfully to sell out tours in America and around the world, was born on this date.


January 24, 1947 -
Well, first of all, let me say that I might have made a tactical error in not going to a physician for 20 years.







Warren William Zevon, singer-songwriter and musician, was born on this date. (Last year, Warren was finally inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the category of Musical Influence.)

Remember kids - keep enjoying every sandwich.


January 24, 1949 -
It's all false pressure; you put the heat on yourself, you get it from the networks and record companies and movie studios. You put more pressure on yourself to make everything that much harder..



John Adam Belushi, actor and comedian, was born on this date.


January 24, 1961 -
Mel Blanc, The Man of a Thousand Voices, was involved in a near-fatal auto accident on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, California on this date. Hit head-on, Blanc suffered a triple skull fracture that left him in a coma for three weeks, along with fractures of both legs and the pelvis.



The accident prompted over 15,000 get-well cards from anxious fans, including some addressed only to "Bugs Bunny, Hollywood, USA", according to Blanc's autobiography. One newspaper falsely reported that he had died. After his recovery, Blanc reported in TV interviews, and later in his autobiography, that a clever doctor had helped him to come out of his coma by talking to Bugs Bunny, after futile efforts to talk directly to Blanc. Although he had no actual recollection of this, Blanc learned that when the doctor was inspired to ask him, "How are you today, Bugs Bunny?", Blanc answered in Bugs' voice. Blanc thus credited Bugs with saving his life.


January 24, 1961 -
A Boeing B-52 Stratofortress carrying two 3–4-megaton Mark 39 nuclear bombs broke up in mid-air, near Goldsboro, North Carolina, dropping its nuclear payload in the process, on this date.



The pilot in command, Walter Scott Tulloch, ordered the crew to eject at 9,000 ft (2,700 m). Five crewmen successfully ejected or bailed out of the aircraft and landed safely; another ejected, but did not survive the landing, and two died in the crash. Information declassified in 2013 showed that one of the bombs came close to detonating, with three of the four required triggering mechanisms having activated.

Oopsie


January 24, 1965 -
Winston Churchill, former prime minister, died from a cerebral thrombosis at his London residence, at age 90 on this date.



Churchill died at his home at 28 Hyde Park Gate in London shortly after 8:00 a.m. on the seventieth anniversary of the death of his father, Sir Randoph Churchill.


January 24, 1970 -
Robert Moog introduced his 'Mini-Moog' synthesizer, on this date. The Mini-moog (priced at around $2,000,) was a more portable and affordable version of the Moog synthesizer and was the first synthesizer available for sale in retail stores.



The American Federation of Musicians considers banning the Mini-Moog, fearing that its ability to simulate acoustic instruments could put musicians out of work.


January 24, 1972 -
Shoichi Yokoi, despite the fact that the war had been over for more than 27 years, was still at his post in Guam. Yokoi was unaware that the war had ended, and had been hiding out in the jungles of Guam since American troops occupied the island in the 1940s.



He refused to surrender until his old commanding officer, who had retired from the military for more than 20 years, was found and told him to stand down on this date. He was the last Japanese soldier from World War II to surrender.


January 24, 1978 -
The nuclear-powered Soviet Cosmos 954 satellite plunges through Earth's atmosphere and disintegrates, scattering radioactive debris over parts of Canada's Northwest Territories. Much of the satellite landed in the Great Slave Lake; only about 1% of the radioactive material was recovered.



Hey, I hope we all enjoyed that smoked salmon from Canada in the late 70s.


January 24, 1986 -
Crackpot and founder of the fraudulent Scientology movement, L. Ron Hubbard died on this date (laughing his ass off about the crap he made up.) His bad science fiction writing has grown alarmingly prolific in the years since his death.



Note to Leah Remini: keep fighting the good fight - otherwise nothing to read here, move on.


I've been checking on and off for a week or so and it seems that David Elrich has posted his annual film mash-up compilation. His 2025 version dropped a few days ago -



I always enjoy his videos and look forward to them each year.


Before you go - I know the snow hasn't started yet but bunkies, it's bitter cold outside -



Take the warings seriously and stay inside if you don't have to go outside. (Catch up on some of my older posts. Check out today's ACME's Eagle Hand Soap Radio Hour.)

A signature always reveals a man's character -

and sometimes even his name

The Writing Instrument Manufacturers Association (WIMA) established today as National Handwriting Day back in 1977, in order to celebrate John Hancock's birthday (who was born on January 12th, so go figure,) one of our Founding Fathers, as well as the first signer of the U.S. Declaration of Independence. Most people who were around then were taught penmanship as children, but that may no longer be the case for younger generations.



In most schools today, greater emphasis is placed on typing and computer technologies. Cursive is disappearing from the curriculum; many young people today learn only enough to sign their name - if they learn any cursive at all.

Remember, celebrate responsibly - practice your penmanship.


January 23, 1948 -
John Huston's classic film, Treasure of Sierra Madre, starring Humphrey Bogart, Walter Huston and Tim Holt opens in NYC on this date.



John Huston stated that working with his father on this picture and his dad's subsequent Oscar win were among the favorite moments of his life.


January 23, 1962 -
François Truffaut's adaptation of the Henri-Pierre Roché novel, Jules et Jim, starring Jeanne Moreau, Oskar Werner, and Henri Serre was released in France, on this date.



Henri-Pierre Roché's original novel was based on his own experiences as a young man. The original Catherine was still alive when the film was released and even attended the premiere incognito.


January 23, 1965 -
Petula Clark's song Downtown, hit No. #1 on the Billboard Charts on this date.



This was Petula Clark's first hit in the US, which was slow to discover her talents. In the UK, she was a star as a singer and as a television performer, where she was a regular on the BBC. In the early '60s, she also caught on in France when she started recording her songs in French. Oddly, she didn't get an American record deal until late in 1964 when a Warner Bros. executive named Joe Smith, who was vacationing in England, heard the song and signed her to a deal. (Bunkies, she's still alive and kicking.)


January 23, 1969 -
Elvis Presley recorded the song Suspicious Minds at American Sound, a small studio in Memphis, on this date.



The song is a huge comeback hit for Elvis, (it was seven years since his last #1 hit,) and gives him his last #1 in America.


January 23, 1975 -
Barney Miller, a TV series set in a New York City police station in Greenwich Village, premiered on ABC-TV on this date.



When Harris (Ron Glass) was asked to produce a porn film for an undercover sting, he uses the name Starry Night Productions as his cover. Years later, show writer Reinhold Weege used the name for his own production company, which produced Night Court.


January 23, 1977 -
The twelve-hour miniseries Roots premiered on ABC-TV on this date.



The show was programmed by ABC to air on several consecutive nights in prime time. It was considered a revolutionary approach to programming a mini-series, since most minis were aired once or twice a week over several weeks' time. It was revealed years later that the reason the network did this was so that they get the show "out of the way" in a hurry because they felt, nobody would watch the story if it aired over a longer period of time.


January 23, 1983 -
The A-Team starring George Peppard, Dirk Benedict and Mr. T premiered on NBC-TV on this date.



According to the remaining cast members, Mr. T and George Peppard did not get along. Peppard was a "proper movie actor," but Mr. T became the real star of the show. Things got even worse when Peppard learned Mr. T was being paid more than he was.


January 23, 1991 -
NBC-TV aired the first regularly scheduled episode of the series Seinfeld, The Ex-Girlfriend, on this date.



Before the show was set to air, Jerry Seinfeld asked Jason Alexander what he thought their chances for success were. Alexander said he thought they "didn't have a chance". When asked why, Alexander responded, "Because the audience for this show is me, and I don't watch TV."


January 23, 1995 -
A series based on Richard Jeni's HBO's comedy special from 1992, Platypus Man, starring Richard Jeni,Ron Orbach, Denise Miller, and David Dundara, first aired on UPN TV on tis date. The series lasted 13 episodes.



This show was the first comedy series to premiere on UPN when the network launched in January 1995.


January 23, 1995 -
Another comedy series that was aired on the launch date of UPN TV, Pig Sty, starring Sean O'Bryan, Liz Vassey, Timothy Fall, Brian McNamara, Matt Borlenghi, and David Arnott, first aired on this date.



The show only lasted 13 episodes and was canceled at the same time Platypus Man was canceled.


January 23, 2003 -
The pilot episode of Mythbusters premiered on The Discovery Channel on this date.



Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage are known for not being friends off-set. Savage has admitted this freely, but stresses that the two of them got along well enough professionally (it was Jamie Hyneman who recommended Adam Savage as co-host in the first place) but make no effort to engage socially. He attributes this to clashing personalities rather than full-blown dislike.


Another unimportant moment in history


Today in History:
January 23, 1849 -
The idea of winning a doctor's degree gradually assumed the aspect of a great moral struggle, and the moral fight possessed immense attraction for me.



English-born Elizabeth Blackwell, becomes the first woman to receive an American medical degree, graduated at the top of her class from the medical school of Hobart College, Geneva, NY on this date.


January 23, 1870 -
One of the worse slaughters of Native American by U.S. troops occurred on this date. The Incident has become known as the Marias Massacre. While the U.S. Cavalry was looking for a band of hostile Blackfoot Indians led by Mountain Chief, they stumbled instead, onto a peaceable band of Piegan Indians led by Chief Heavy Runner and killed about 200 tribes people, many of them women and children.



140 others were captured, later to be turned loose without horses, adequate food, and clothing. As the refugees made their way to Fort Benton, Montana, some ninety miles away, many of them froze to death. In the meantime Mountain Chief and his people had escaped across the border into Canada.

Another proud day for the American military


January 23, 1897 -
Elva Zona Heaster was found dead in Greenbrier County, West Virginia on this date. Authorities originally thought Heaster had died of natural causes, but her mother later claimed that Elva's ghost visited her and told her otherwise, leading to her widowed husband's arrest and conviction.



It was one of the few times in American legal history that the testimony of a ghost was taken into account at trial.


January 23, 1909 -
RMS Republic, a passenger ship of the White Star Line, collided with another ship, the SS Florida, off the Massachusetts coastline, an event that killed six people, on this date. The ship was equipped with a new Marconi wireless telegraphy transmitter, and issued a CQD distress call, resulting in the saving of around 1,500 lives.



Known as the "Millionaires' Ship" because of the number of wealthy Americans who traveled by her, she was described as a "palatial liner" and was the flagship of White Star Line's Boston service. This was the first important marine rescue made possible by radio, and brought worldwide attention to this new technology.


January 23, 1931 -
While touring in the Netherlands, the prima ballerina Anna Pavlova's train had a slight accident, derailing and being delayed for 12 hours. She went outside dressed only in pajamas and a light scarf to see what was happening. As a result of this she caught a cold, which developed into pneumonia.



She died three weeks later on this date. At the end, she asked to hold her Dying Swan costume. Her last words were, "Play that last measure very softly."

So kids, once again, your mother was right - when it's cold outside, put on a sweater.


January 23, 1978 -
Terry Kath of band Chicago accidentally killed himself on this date while pretending to play Russian Roulette in Woodland Hills.



Kaith's last words were 'Don't worry, it's not loaded.' The circumstances of his death gave him the dubious distinction of being one of the first celebrities to be nominated for a Darwin Award.

Moral: Remember guns don't kill - however one bullet in the chamber is a killer.


Before you go: Helpful tips in preparing for the Snow Apocalypse from your friends at ACME:
As concerns mount over the potential for the deep freeze and some major snow for the Tri-State Area this weekend, remember the number one thing you should do this afternoon -

Load up on wine and spirits! You might be snowed in with your family this weekend. (Seriously though - shop this afternoon for your essentials and stay inside th rest of this weekend.)



And so it goes