The folks at Burger Fiction put together a great mashup of Phone calls in movies



I'm not that familiar with the rest of the stuff they've done - but since I really liked this, I'll have to check out their other stuff.


September 20, 1946 -
The first Cannes film festival, the first great international cultural event of the post-war period, begins on this date. Among the selections that year were:

The Battle of the Rails directed by René Clement



Make Mine Music produced by the Walt Disney Studios



Symphonie Pastorale directed by Jean Delannoy



Anna and the King of Siam directed by John Cromwell



La Belle et La Bête directed by Jean Cocteau




Roma Citta Aperta directed by Roberto Rossellini



The festival was France's response to the world's first international film festival in Venice, Italy, in 1932. By 1938, the Venice festival had become a Nazi propaganda tool, and France decided to hold a rival event focused strictly on film. Its planned 1939 debut was delayed when World War II broke out.


September 20, 1955 -
The Phil Silvers Show (originally broadcast as You'll Never Be Rich) premiered on CBS-TV on this date



Although the ratings were still good in the show's final season, it was canceled by CBS because they wanted to sell the reruns in syndication. At the time, it was believed that a series could not still be in production in order to do well in reruns. The reruns were sold to NBC and aired continuously for 40 years.


September 20, 1975 -
David Bowie's Fame single hits #1 for two weeks on this date.



This was Bowie's first big hit in America, and also his first to do better in the US than the UK. He had a few UK hits before this, including Rebel Rebel,  Life On Mars, and Diamond Dogs.


September 20, 1984 -
Despite his taste in loud, ugly sweaters, Bill Cosby's award winning show, The Cosby Show, premiered on NBC-TV on this date.



Peter Costa, who played Huxtable neighbor and Rudy's playmate Peter suffered stage fright, and due to that would often forget his lines. This resulted in his character's communication via trademark facial expressions and always running out of the house at the sign of trouble.


Today in History :
September 20, 1881 -
Chester Alan Arthur was sworn in as the 21st President of the United States following the death of James Garfield the previous day.



This is the first time the oath of office has been taken in the Vice President's Room of the Capitol. Two ex-presidents (Grant and Hayes) are present at the ceremony. (Also a great bar bet winner - it's the second time there were three Presidents within the same year; Rutherford B. Hayes, James Garfield then Chester A. Arthur.  And even more amazing bar bet winner - Robert Todd Lincoln was at the bedside of three assassinated American Presidents; his father, Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield and William McKinley.)


September 20, 1958 -
Rev. Martin Luther King was stabbed by Izola Curry, a deranged woman, during a book signing on 125th St. in Harlem on this date.



Dr. Aubre De Lambert Maynard successfully performed surgery on King who had a knife embedded in his sternum. Ms. Curry was found mentally incompetent to stand trial; ultimately, she was diagnosed a paranoid schizophrenic.


September 20, 1970 -
A jury in Miami, Florida finds vocalist Jim Morrison guilty of profanity and indecent exposure for whipping out his mojo at a Doors concert in Coconut Grove the previous year.



Oh you naughty Mr. Mojo Rising ...


September 20, 1973 -
A Beechcraft D-18 charter plane crashes into a tree near Natchitoches, Louisiana, killing singer/songwriter Jim Croce, his lead guitarist, and the entire flight crew.



I guess if he could have put time in a bottle, the first real thing he would have done would be chartering a different plane.


September 20, 1973 -
On the same day, in their so-called 'Battle of the Sexes,' tennis star Billie Jean King beat Bobby Riggs in straight sets, 6-4, 6-3, 6-3, at the Houston Astrodome.



In recent years, a persistent urban legend has arisen (again,) that Bobby Riggs had thrown the tennis match against Billie Jean King, to pay off a purported $100,000 gambling debt he owed to the Mafia.

This is false: this scurrilous rumor should have been put to bed a number of times, not the least of which, when Mr Riggs passed a lie detector test denying that he threw the Battle of the Sexes.


September 20, 1988 -
Greg Louganis won the gold medal in springboard diving at the Summer Olympics in Seoul, one day after he struck and injured his head on the board in the preliminary round.



His comeback earned him the title of ABC's Wide World of Sports "Athlete of the Year" for 1988.


And on a personal note:

Happy Birthday Angela and

Happy Anniversary John and Maria.

And so it goes

Who knew it was this easy?

NY Magazine has a wonderful video about how to easily diagnose someone who is clinically narcissistic.



Now if we could all have script pads.


Today is International Talk Like A Pirate Day. The holiday is a parody holiday invented in 1995 by John Baur (Ol' Chumbucket) and Mark Summers (Cap'n Slappy), of Corvallis, Oregon, who proclaimed September 19 each year as the day when everyone in the world should talk like a pirate.







Nothing says Piracy (or the British Navy) more than Rum, The Lash and Sodomy.  So remember: keep plenty of rum, leather belts and ACME's Bung Balm handy today.


September 19, 1931 -
Paramount released the Marx Brother's third film, Monkey Business on this date.




This is the first Marx Brothers film written especially for the screen.


September 19, 1970 -
The greatest sitcom every produced, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, premiered on CBS TV on this date.



The show was originally about a divorced woman. Divorce was still a hot subject in 1970, so it changed to a broken engagement. The network was afraid people would think that Mary Tyler Moore had divorced Rob Petrie, her character's husband on The Dick Van Dyke Show.


September 19, 1975 -
The British sitcom Fawlty Towers, created by John Cleese, premiered on BBC2 on this date.



John Cleese (Basil Fawlty) and Connie Booth (Polly Sherman) were really husband and wife when they created and wrote the scripts for the first series. By the beginning of filming for the second season their marriage had fallen apart and they had divorced.


September 19, 1981 -
Despite the fact that Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel had barely spoken to each other in ten year, they reunited on this date to raise funds to renovate Central Park and performed in front of 500,000 people in New York City.



The concert was so successful, the duo decided to embark on a year-long world tour. During the tour, tensions mounted between the pair and they split again after it was completed.


September 19, 1986 -
David Lynch's profoundly unsettling film, Blue Velvet, premiered on this date, (after I saw the movie, I had to go out and have a drink.)



Roy Orbison initially rejected David Lynch's request to use the song In Dreams in the brothel scene. Lynch found a way to legally use the song anyway and Orbison did not discover the song was in the movie until Orbison just happened to see the movie in a California theatre. Orbison eventually filmed a video for the song that was produced by Lynch with footage from the movie.


Today in History:
September 19, 1692 -
Giles Corey was accused of witchcraft in 1692. This put him in a difficult spot. If he pleaded guilty, he'd be burned alive at the stake. If he pleaded not guilty, he'd have to take a lie-detector test.

The state-of-the-art lie detector of 1692 wasn't any less accurate than today's models, but it was significantly rougher on its subjects. It was called "dunking." The tightly bound subject would be dunked repeatedly into a pond or lake until the truth emerged.



One of the primary symptoms of demonic possession was immunity to water, so those who survived the process were rewarded with a warm, dry burning at the stake. Those who drowned, on the other hand, were clearly innocent and received a favorable ruling.



Giles Corey wasn't eager to be burned at the stake, but he wasn't keen on posthumous vindication, either. A plea of guilty meant the stake; a plea of not-guilty meant drowning (or the stake, depending on the results of the lie-detector test). Mr. Corey therefore did what any reasonable person might have done: he claimed his Fifth Amendment rights under the Constitution and said nothing.

This was a foolish and costly blunder, as the Constitution had not yet been invented.



Baffled by the accused's refusal to enter a plea, the court pressed him for an answer. Literally. Giles Corey became the first, last, and only American ever to have been pressed to death by his own government, on this date in history.


September 19, 1881 -
The 20th president of the United States, James A. Garfield, (shot by assassin Charles J. Guiteau,) died from his wounds on this date.



Psst - Guiteau didn't kill the President, his doctors did. Several inserted their unsterilized fingers into the wound to probe for the bullet, and one doctor punctured Garfield's liver in doing so. Garfield's doctors had turned a three-inch-deep, harmless wound into a twenty-inch-long contaminated gash stretching from his ribs to his groin and oozing more pus each day. He lingered for eighty days, wasting away from his robust 210 pounds to a mere 130 pounds.



Alexander Graham Bell had made several unsuccessful attempts to remove the assassin’s bullet with a new metal detection device.


September 19, 1931 -
Adolf Hitler's 23-year-old half niece, Geli Raubal, was found dead in her uncle's Munich apartment from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the chest on this date.

Some allege that she and Adolf had a sexual relationship, which involved Geli urinating on him. Hitler conveniently happens to be out of town at the time of the shooting.

Oh that Hitler, what a wacky Fuhrer.


September 19, 1934 -
Bruno Hauptmann was arrested for the kidnap-murder of the Lindbergh baby on this date.

We aren't sure if he did it, but he did have $11,000 of the ransom money.

So they fried him two years later.


September 19, 1957 -



The U.S. conducted its first underground nuclear test, code-named Rainier, in the Nevada desert on this date. This caused a major disturbance in the natural order of the fragile desert eco-system,



ultimately resulting in Las Vegas,



and enormous spiders



and oversized seafood.


September 19, 1959 -
In a Cold War setback, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev was annoyed to learn that he would not be permitted to visit Disneyland, due to concerns for his personal safety.



This mean, most of the cold war could have been prevented, if we let that fat bald premier ride Mr. Toad's Wild Ride.


September 19, 1961 -
Betty (Estelle Parsons) and Barney (James Earl Jones) Hill were picked up near Indian Head, New Hampshire and anally probed by five beings in a flying saucer. The couple later describes the craft as being "banana-like, with pointed tips and windows."



Anyway, that's what Barney told Betty what happened.


September 19, 1991 -
A body was found frozen in a glacier in the Alps between Austria and Italy. A German tourist found the body and called the Austrian police. They tried to free the body from the ice with a jackhammer. It was only when an anthropologist showed up to examine the body that they realized it was a very, very old corpse - 5,300 years old, in fact - of a man between 25 and 35 years old. He was five feet, two inches tall, with hair about three inches long. He had tattoos. He wore an unlined fur robe, a woven grass cape, and size six shoes stuffed with grass for warmth.



He came to be called Ötzi the Iceman, and what made him such a remarkable discovery for anthropologists was the fact that he died while he was out walking on an ordinary day wearing ordinary clothing. He carried a copper axe and a fur quiver for his arrows, the only quiver from the Neolithic period that has ever been found. His arrows had sharp flint points and feathers that were affixed at an angle that would cause the arrows to spin. And he carried mushrooms in his bag that scientists speculate were used for medicine.

It was not until ten years later that a forensics expert noticed in an x-ray that the Iceman had an arrowhead lodged in his back. He had been murdered.



Who murdered the Iceman. Stay tuned to CSI Austria on your local CBS networks.


September 19, 1995 -
The New York Times and the Washington Post published the Unabomber's rambling, 35,000-word anti-technology screed, Industrial Society And Its Future, on this date.

In exchange, he promises to halt his bombing campaign.



And so it goes

Flying rockets is dangerous fun.

(Before anything - I'm terribly sorry if you saw the terrible spam comments that were posted earlier yesterday.  I've gotten rid of them and I believe that I solved the problem.)


Chris Hadfield, everybody's favorite Canadian astronaut (sorry Chris, Buzz, still kicking ass at 85 and planning on going to Mars, is everybody's favorite,) is releasing an album of tunes on October 9th,  Space Sessions: Songs from a Tin Can. 



If he wasn't cool enough, Chris invited Ahmed Mohamed, the Texas teen arrested, after his homemade clock was mistaken for bomb, to a Toronto science show.  Others people have jumped in offering to pay for Ahmed's flight to Toronto and hotel stay.


September 18, 1951 -
20th Century Fox premiered the science fiction classic, The Day the Earth Stood Still, directed by Robert Wise and starring Michael Rennie and Patricia Neal, in New York, on this date.




Patricia Neal has admitted in interviews that she was completely unaware during the filming that the film would turn out so well and become one of the great science-fiction classics of all time. She assumed it would be just another one of the then-current and rather trashy flying saucer films that were popular at the time, and she found it difficult to keep a straight face while saying her lines.


September 18, 1963 -
The show that taught elderly men, twin cousins might be lured into immoral acts with the purchase of grilled sausages - The Patty Duke Show, premiered on ABC-TV on this date.



For most of the scenes featuring both Patty and Cathy, actress Rita Walter played "the back of either Patty's or Cathy's head", as appropriate. She can also be seen in several episodes as a background character.


September 18, 1964 -
The most normal family's ever presented on US televsion, The Addams Family premiered on ABC-TV on this date.



Originally, the character of Lurch was to be mute. However, in the episode The Addams Family Goes to School, Ted Cassidy, ad-libbed the famous line, "You rang?" The line got a wave a laughter from the studio audience and Cassidy got more dialogue.


September 18, 1965 -
Kleenex stock rose precipitously as I Dream of Jeannie premiered on this date.


(sorry for the colorized version)

According to Sidney Sheldon in his autobiography "The Other Side Of Me", NBC wanted to film season one in black and white because they didn't believe the show would last more than 1 season. He offered to pay the extra $400 per episode needed for color filming. Screen Gems executive Jerry Hyams advised him, "Sidney, don't throw your money away." The first season was filmed in black and white, then colorized much later.


September 18, 1965 -
Mel Brooks and Buck Henry started making the world safe from KAOS when Get Smart premiered on NBC-TV on this date.



When Don Adams was negotiating his salary, he had his choice between more money per week and no ownership stake in the show or less money per week and part ownership. He chose the ownership deal and never regretted it.


September 18, 1968 -
The film musical Funny Girl with Barbra Streisand premiered in NYC.



Barbra Streisand was, at the time of the film's release, a voting member of AMPAS. When she found she was nominated, she, like any member nominated, voted for herself. If she hadn't, she wouldn't have tied with Katharine Hepburn for the year's Best Actress Oscar.


September 18, 1978 -
We first started living on the air in Cincinnati when WKRP in Cincinnati, premiered on CBS-TV on this date.



The show was videotaped instead of filmed because the rights to rock songs were cheaper for a taped show than for a filmed show.


September 18, 1987 -
Pet bunnies felt a cold breeze on their neck when Fatal Attraction, starring Michael Douglas and Glenn Close, opened on this date.



When Glenn Close's agent first called to express her interest in playing Alex Forrest, he was told, "Please don't make her come in. She's completely wrong for the part." Director Adrian Lyne also thought that Glenn Close was "the last person on Earth" who should play Alex.


September 18, 1994 -
Ken Burn's series about America's favorite past time Baseball, premiered on PBS on this date.



When discussing Yogi Berra's many interesting quotes, a friend of Yogi's is alleged to have said, "Hey, Yogi, what do you know?" Yogi allegedly replied, "I don't even suspect anything." This exchange is actually taken from an exchange Charles Chaplin had in a Parisienne café in Monsieur Verdoux.


Today in History:
Once again, I must ask all children and those with delicate natures to turn away from their computer screens as we discuss the bizarre deviant sexual behavior on the part of our founding fathers:

On September 18, 1793, President George Washington laid the foundation stone for the U.S. Capitol. According to numerous sources, President Washington "laid the stone in a Masonic ceremony... preceded by a parade and followed by celebration and feasting."

The 1792 competition for the design of the Capitol had been won by an amateur architect, and the building was therefore burned by the British before it could be completed. Congress had moved into the building on November 22, 1800, but managed to escape the fire.


September 18, 1851 -
The New York Times published its first edition on this date. The newspaper, initially called the New-York Daily Times, was founded by Henry Jarvis Raymond, a politician and journalist.

It cost one penny per copy and was published six days per week, changing to seven days 1861. Its name was changed to the New York Times in 1857.


September 18, 1932 -
24-year-old starlet Peg Entwistle dived head first from the letter "H" of the HOLLYWOODLAND sign in Los Angeles. She is the first person to commit suicide at the landmark.



Her body was discovered in the brush at the base of the hill two days later, and pronounced dead. When police examined her belongings, in her purse they found a note that read:

"I am afraid, I am a coward. I am sorry for everything. If I had done this a long time ago, it would have saved a lot of pain. P.E."



Two days later, in an ironic twist, Entwistle's uncle opened a letter addressed to her from the Beverly Hills Playhouse; it was mailed the day before she jumped. In it was an offer for her to play the lead role in a stage production—in which her character would commit suicide in the final act.


September 18, 1961 -
Dag Hammarskjold, Secretary-General of the UN, was killed in a plane crash in Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia)on this date. He was flying to negotiate a cease-fire in the Congo.



Hammarskjold was the son of a former Swedish prime minister. In 1953, he was elected to the top UN post and in 1957 was reelected. During his second term, he initiated and directed the United Nation's vigorous role in the Belgian Congo.

Strangely enough, for many years, I worked in an office building that bears his name.


September 18, 1970 -
Jimi Hendrix died in his sleep, in London, from of a barbiturate overdose when chunks of his vomited tuna sandwich wound up in his lungs, causing him to choke, on this date. He was 27 years old.



At least his family could take comfort that he did not choke on someone else's vomit.

Once again I  must remind you that Cass Elliot did not choke to death on a ham sandwich. It is an urban myth born out of a quickly discarded speculation by the coroner, who noted a part eaten ham sandwich and figured she may have choked to death. In fact, she died of heart failure.

So cut it out.


September 18, 1977 -
NASA's unmanned space probe Voyager 1 snapped the first photograph of the Moon and the Earth in the same frame while on its mission to study the Solar System and its boundaries. At the time, Voyager 1 was 7.25 million miles (11.66 million kilometers) from Earth.

Voyager 1 continues its mission today and still is in communication with NASA scientists.


September 18, 1992 -
Two weeks after being outed in the New York weekly QW, attorney John Schlafly admits in an interview with the San Francisco Examiner that he enjoys the love that dare not speak it's name. This causes a certain amount of consternation for his mother, archconservative gay rights opponent Phyllis Schlafly.

The Schlafly family have still not fulfilled their obligation as good Christians to present their rebellious son to the town elders and have him stoned to death as instructed in Deut. 21:18.


September 18, 1994 -
Vitas Gerulaitis was killed in his sleep the previous night in the guest cottage of a friend's Long Island estate. His body was discovered on this date. The professional tennis player died from carbon monoxide poisoning, caused by a faulty propane swimming-pool heater.

How many more people must die from killer swimming pools?



And so it goes

I don't remember that in the story

September 17, 1949 -
Little Rural Riding Hood, the last of Tex Avery's variations on Little Rural Riding Hood, premiered on this date.



Because of budget restraints, animation of this cartoon is reused from Swing Shift Cinderella.  The singing voice of Imogene Lynn was included with the reused section of Swing Shift Cinderella.


September 17, 1956 -
Vincente Minnelli's brilliant bio-pix, Lust for Life, opened in NYC on this date.



A very young Michael Douglas and his brother ran screaming from the theater during the scene where Van Goth severs his own ear because they believed their father, Kirk Douglas, had actually harmed himself.


September 17, 1961 -
William Faulkner's favorite TV show, Car 54 Where are You?, premiered on NBC-TV, on this date.



NBC wanted to buy part ownership of the show in exchange for it being renewed for a third season. Creator Nat Hiken refused and the show's sponsor, Proctor and Gamble, tried to take the show to CBS. But there was no room on their schedule. Hiken had become burnt out on the show due to its single camera set-up which required more time. He also had constant problems with Joe E. Ross who had trouble remembering his lines. Hiken gladly ended the show and never worked on another series again.


September 17, 1963 -
David Janssen started running when ABC-TV premiered The Fugitive, on this date.



Legend has it, that after completing the first episode, David Janssen walked up the road with Barry Morse and said, "Do you think we will get a couple of weeks work out of this?"


September 17, 1964 -
United Artists released the third James Bond thriller (in the UK,) Goldfinger, starring Sean Connery, on this date.



Author Ian Fleming partially based the title character of his original 1959 novel Goldfinger on the controversial Modernist architect Erno Goldfinger. When he learned that Fleming was naming the villain of his new James Bond novel Goldfinger, the architect threatened to file a lawsuit against Fleming's publisher in an effort to stop the book's publication. Fleming's publisher then contacted the author to inquire whether Fleming might consider renaming the character, and the novel. Fleming replied that he'd be delighted to alter the name...if he could change the name of the character--and the novel--to "Goldprick." Fleming's publisher quietly settled the architect's lawsuit out of court.


September 17, 1964 -
Dick York started out as Durwood, I mean, Darrin as Bewitched premieres on ABC-TV on this date.


(sorry about the colorized version)

Special furniture was used on the set for Dick York due to his back problems. Other cast and crew members also helped him get around on the set. He had to leave the show in 1969 when he suddenly collapsed to the floor on-set. In interviews years later York had always said he felt horrible because he never finished the show.


September 17, 1965 -
CBS-TV premiered Hogan's Heroes, the first and perhaps only sitcom based in a German prisoner-of-war camp on this date.



Werner Klemperer only agreed to play Col. Klink once he was assured (by the show's creator) that Klink would never succeed in his schemes.


September 17, 1967 -
The first mission from the IMF team from Mission Impossible premiered on CBS-TV on this date.



For several years the series first season was not shown in syndication due to the fact that many people had grown so accustomed to Jim Phelps (Peter Graves) being the leader of the team that many viewers were shocked when they saw the first season reruns with Dan Briggs (Steven Hill) as the leader of the IMF.


September 17, 1972 -
M*A*S*H, premiered on NBC TV on this date.



Jamie Farr and Alan Alda were the only two cast members to have actually served in the US Army in Korea. Both of them did their tours of duty after the 1953 cease fire.


Today in History:
September 17, 1778 -
The United States signed its first treaty with a Native American tribe, the Delaware Nation.

Within a year the Delaware Indians were expressing grievances about the treaty. A delegation of Delawares visited Philadelphia in 1779 to explain their dissatisfaction to the Continental Congress, but nothing changed and peace between the United States and the Delaware Indians collapsed.  (The day should be called Lies the White Man told us day.)


On July 4, 1776, the American colonies told Britain to kiss their hairy American asses. This began the Revolutionary War, during which the Redcoats were coming, a shot was heard 'round the world' and Paul Revere could see the whites of their eyes and knew that their taxes were too high.



The complexities of war demanded organization between the states, so they established Articles of Confederation, which in turn created a Continental Congress. This Congress was adequate to see them through the war, but by the late 1780s it became clear that both the Continental Congress and the Articles of Confederation sucked.



Even way back then Americans didn't want anything to do with anything that sucked (unless it meant a substantial discount, which in this case it did not).

The Continental Congress tried to fix the Articles of Confederation in 1786. The Congress still sucked, of course, and so they failed.

In the spring of 1787 the states sent new delegates to a new convention designed to produce a government that wouldn't be so awful.



On September 17, 1787, the Constitutional Convention voted its approval of a new Constitution, which they immediately ran out to have printed.

The Continental Congress acted with its usual efficiency, and by July 2 of the following year, the Constitution had become the law of the land. The last act of the Continental Congress was to schedule federal elections for their replacements.



Today is Constitution Day in the U.S. Celebrate by refusing to allow soldiers to be billeted in your home.


September 17, 1859 -
The San Francisco Call Bulletin published a notice on an inside page announcing that our old pal Joshua Norton, formerly a prominent businessman, had proclaimed himself Norton I, “Emperor of these United States and Protector of Mexico.” He annexed the whole of the US and suspended the Constitution. His Majesty remained on the job until his death in 1880.

The successor to Emperor Norton I has yet to be anointed. I am still consulting attorneys about this matter, as we speak.


September 17, 1908 -
Thomas E. Selfridge becomes the world's first airplane fatality when the Wright Flyer, a craft he's co-piloting with Orville Wright for the U.S. Army, crashed near Fort Meyer, Virginia on this date.

An untested propeller ripped apart the plane's structure, causing it to nosedive from an altitude of 75 feet.

Orville walks away unscathed and Wilber never quite trusted his brother again, as he was supposed to fly in the plane with his brother. And yet despite the tragic mishap, the War Department awarded the contract for the first military aircraft to Wright.


September 17, 1935 -
Len Koenecke was an outfielder with the Brooklyn Dodgers for most of 1935, but near the end of the season he was released for “behavior and erratic play.” The Dodger left St. Louis by passenger plane, but was ordered off in Detroit because of intoxication. Len chartered a three-seater plane for Buffalo that included both the pilot and the co-pilot.

The ballplayer began to play with the airplane controls, and would not stop when ordered. Koenecke and the pilot’s pal were soon fighting on the floor. Knowing that it was either him or us, the pilot grabbed a fire extinguisher and while still flying the plane he continued to whack on the offender’s head hard enough to knock him out. When the pilot finally landed near Toronto, Koenecke was dead at the age of 31.

So kids, please remain in you seat until the plane comes to a complete stop or the pilot may have to kill you.


September 17, 1939 -
The Soviet Union invaded Poland, to fulfill its end of the secret protocols contained in the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact. They partition the country along pre-decided lines.



As you well know the last laugh will be on the Russian, when Hitler turns on them.


September 17, 1978 -
The Camp David Peace Accords, a set of agreements between Egypt and Israel was signed on this date. The agreements were the culmination of years of negotiations for peace in the Middle East. Acting as a peace broker, President Jimmy Carter convinced Egyptian President Anwar el-Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin to reach a compromise in their disputes.



Let's send good thoughts to Mr. Carter at this time.



And so it goes

It's World Ozone Day

In 1994, the UN General Assembly proclaimed September 16, the International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer, commemorating the date of the signing, in 1987, of the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer.



This year marks the 30th anniversary of the Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer (it was at this meeting, that the famous 'hole in the ozone' above the Arctic was announced,) an important milestone in the protection of the ozone layer. The theme is supported by the slogan, “Ozone: All there is between you and UV.”   


September 16, 1953 -
The first movie filmed in the widescreen process CinemaScope, The Robe, premiered at the Roxy Theater in New York on this date.



Richard Burton was once threatened with a gun by Stewart Granger because of the affair he was having with Granger's wife Jean Simmons during filming.


September 16, 1963 -
The science-fiction anthology series The Outer Limits premiered on ABC-TV on this date.



The original title for The Outer Limits was Please Stand By. But, America was facing the Cuban Missile Crisis and the executives thought it might make people fearful of an air raid. This is why, in the new series when the show would cut to a commercial, the Control Voice said, "Please stand by." A tip-of-the-hat to the original series title.


September 16, 1965 -
NBC-TV finally put that little ole' wine drinker ... on the air  when The Dean Martin Show premiered on this date.



Dean Martin wanted to be on TV but also wanted to be free to do movies and records; his contract required that he only show up to do his variety show one day per week (on Sundays). That's why he always seemed slightly out of step with the rest of the cast, who had rehearsed with Lee Hale standing in for Martin the day before. When Martin made a mistake he'd just laugh it off. The audience loved it.


September 16, 1967 -
The TV series Mannix, starring Mike Connors, premiered on CBS-TV on this date.



Mike Connors suffered two injuries during the filming of the pilot that continued to give him discomfort for the rest of his life. In the sequence on the golf course, during one of the shots when the helicopter plunged toward him, he threw himself to the ground and dislocated his right shoulder on a hill he hadn't realized was there. And in the fight sequence in the palm grove with Lloyd Nolan's henchman, he broke his left wrist when throwing a punch. Connors slipped in the muddy water and hit harder than he had intended, and his punch landed on a steel back brace that he had not known the other actor was wearing. In subsequent shots, Connors wore a soft cast on that wrist, and kept his left hand out of camera range.


September 16, 1972 -
Everybody's favorite therapist, before Frasier (see below) walked through his front door as The Bob Newhart Show premiered on CBS-TV on this date.



A popular drinking game was invented by college students during the run of the show. Whenever someone on the show says, "Bob," each player had to take a drink. If someone said "Hi, Bob," you had to guzzle your drink.


September 16, 1984 -
In case you you looking for the official date that the 80s began - Miami Vice premiered on NBC-TV on this date.



The series' commitment to the visual quality of every episode made it one of the most expensive shows to produce at the time. In fact, the cost to produce one episode of the show was greater than that of the entire annual budget of the Miami Police Department's Vice Unit.


September 16, 1993 -
Kelsey Grammer continued playing Dr. Fraiser Crane as Frasier, premiered on NBC-TV on this date.



Kelsey Grammer has been Emmy-nominated for playing the same character on three different shows: Cheers, Frasier and a guest appearance on Wings.


Today in History:
September 16, 1498 -
Tomas de Torquemada, the notorious Grand Inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition, died in Avila, Spain on this date.



More than 2,000 heretics were burned to death and 9,654 otherwise tortured under his aegis before all the Jews were expelled in 1492. In 1836, vandals break into Torquemada's tomb, cremate the bones, and scatter his ashes upon the winds.


At precisely twelve noon on September 16, 1893 a cannon's boom unleashed the largest land rush America ever saw.



Carried by all kinds of transportation - horses, wagons, trains, bicycles or on foot - an estimated 100,000 raced to claim plots of land in an area of land in northern Oklahoma Territory known as the Cherokee Strip.


September 16, 1810 -
No tequila for you if you thought Mexican Independence Day was Cinco de Mayo.



Today is Independence Day in Mexico.



Mexico began its revolt against Spanish rule on this date. Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla issued "El Grito de Dolores" (Cry of Freedom), which claimed the end of Spanish rule.


September 16, 1908  -
General Motors Holding Company was formed in Flint, Mich., by William Durant on this date. (Within 12 days the company generated stocks that generated $12,000,000 cash.)



Psst, something else your teachers didn't tell you - Nazi armaments chief Albert Speer told a congressional investigator in 1974 that Germany could not have attempted its September 1939 Blitzkrieg of Poland without the performance-boosting additive technology provided by Alfred P. Sloan (long-time president, chairman, and CEO of General Motors Corporation.)


September 16, 1920 -
A horse-drawn carriage loaded with dynamite exploded in front of the J.P. Morgan & Company headquarters at 23 Wall Street in New York's financial district, on this date. 30 people were killed in the blast. More than 400 were injured.



Although the crime was never solved, it was believed to have been the work of the Anarchists, angry internationalists who believed the only good institutions were smoldering ruins. Anarchist Leon Czolgosz had assassinated President McKinley two decades earlier, on September 6, 1901, in Buffalo - an assassination that caused Teddy Roosevelt and the bully pulpit.

(Despite similarities in spelling, Anarchists should not be confused with Antichrists, Arachnids or Pimentos.)


It was perhaps no accident that the Morgan bombing took place on the 300th anniversary of the Mayflower's departure from England. Passengers were mostly members of a separatist Protestant congregation separating from the Church of England (Puritan Party Poopers). They were from the English Midlands. They had gone at first to a village near Amsterdam, lived in Holland for ten years (generally bringing everybody down) and then decided to start their own society from scratch. They had two boats for the trip across the Atlantic: the Speedwell and the Mayflower. The Speedwell was leaky, and they spent time trying to repair it.



So when they finally set sail on September 16 (September 6th on the OC), they were way behind schedule. The journey took 66 days. It was rainy, it was cold, and the ocean was rough (They loved it). The boat was 90 feet long and carried 102 passengers. There were no separate cabins. They all had to live in the cargo area. But the Mayflower had previously been used to transport wine, and so the hold smelled wonderful (They hated it).



The Mayflower (and the Speedwell) carried its cargo of Puritan Party Poopers (Pilgrims) to Massachusetts, where they became the first tourists in history to visit Plymouth Rock.

Anarchists hate tourists.


September 16, 1968 -
Presidential candidate Richard M. Nixon appears on the NBC comedy show Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In and asks Sock it to me? on this date.



George Schlatter, the creator of Laugh-In, unsuccessfully chased after Vice-President Hubert Humphrey to offer him the same opportunity to appear on the show.  Humphrey was unable to make room in his schedule and always regretted it, stating that he believed it was one of the reasons he lost the election.

September 16, 1977 -
Maria Callas, American-born prima donna famed for her lyric soprano and fiery temperament, died in Paris on this date.



From October 1971 to March 1972, Callas gave a series of master classes to 25 students at The Juilliard School in New York, who auditioned for the opportunity to be critiqued by her. They were open to the public and the sold-out crowds included opera greats Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Tito Gobbi, Plácido Domingo, Grace Bumbry, and Bidu Sayão, actors Lillian Gish and Ben Gazzara, and director Franco Zeffirelli.


September 16, 2008 -
Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy (the largest so far in the United States) on this date and is seen as the beginning of the global financial crisis.



I'm not sure what the correct anniversary gift should be - just find a banker or hedge fund manager and kick him square in the groin (repeatedly.)


And so it goes

It's Felt Hat Day

According to fashion arbiters from days gone by - you should not we wearing your straw hats any longer this season -



In the early 20th Century, tradition held that a man switch from straw hats to felt ones on September 15th. If he wore “the taboo headgear” after that date, hooligans were free to smash it to bits.

In 1922, a group of men and boy, 1,000 strong from Five Points sparked a bizarre riot that shook New York City from the Battery to the Bronx, as they prowled the city, beating men, who refused to remove their straw hats.


September 15, 1949 -
what you mean we, white man? ...

The Lone Ranger, the masked hero rode onto the fledgling ABC network for the first time on this date



The Lone Ranger is never captured or held for very long by lawmen or outlaws in order to avoid the chance of him being unmasked.


September 15, 1965 -
This was an incredibly busy day in TV History:

The Big Valley premiered on this date.



This was the only western to be built around a strong, female lead character.

Green Acres premiered on this date.



There was a false rumor going around that the Green Acres cast had a luau on the final day of filming and ate Arnold the Pig. In an interview for a TV Land Special, Tom Lester revealed that he made the story up, because he got tired of people asking him whatever happened to Arnold the Pig.

Danger Will Robinson, danger. Dr. Smith is attempting to inappropriately stimulate your bulbous young nether region!



The Robinson Family gets Lost in Space for the first time on CBS-TV on this date.


And last, but not least, the first American television drama to feature an African-American actor in a lead role, I Spy, starring Bill Cosby and Roger Culp, premiered on NBC-TV on this date.



Culp and Cosby improvised most of their banter. They also ended up rewriting much of their dialogue as they were often dissatisfied with the scripts.


September 15, 1967 -
The Star Trek episode Amok Time aired on this date.  In the episode, Kirk and Spock are pitted in a fight to the death against each other by Spock’s wife-to-be when Spock suffers his first pon farr (the Vulcan time of mating).



The episode is the first in which Spock uses either the phrase “live long and prosper” and makes the “Vulcan salute” gesture for the first time.


September 15, 1971 -
Just one more thing...

The first episode of the Columbo series premiered on NBC-TV on this date.



The very first episode, was directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Steven Bochco. Spielberg was never again involved with the series, through Bochco wrote several other episodes.


September 15, 1986 –
Los Angeles law firm McKenzie, Brackman, Chaney and Kuzak first opened their doors to television viewer when LA Law premiered on NBC-TV on this date.



Series co-creator Terry Louise Fisher, former deputy district attorney for Los Angeles County, former entertainment lawyer for 20th Century Fox, and producer-writer for Cagney & Lacey, composed a form letter she was thinking of sending to lawyers who complained about the show: "Dear So-and-so: If I were a good lawyer, I'd still be practicing law. Instead, I'm stuck in Hollywood, making 10 times as much money. I hope you are as conscientious about your clients as you are about our show. Thank for your writing."


Today in History:
September 15, 1776 -
The British, led by General Howe, occupied Manhattan, capturing Kip's Bay, on this date.

Outraged by the rents, discouraged by the lack of parking and homesick for bubble and squeak and spotted dick, however, they left shortly afterwards, leaving only drunken journalists behind.


September 15, 1830 -
British MP William Huskisson was chatting amiably with the Duke of Wellington at the grand opening of the Liverpool & Manchester Railway, when all at once the right honorable gentleman distinguished himself for posterity by becoming the first human being in history to be run over by a train.

Apparently, Mr. Huskisson number was up.



(The Duke of Wellington, on the other hand, is remembered for his Beef.)


September 15, 1864 -
Thirty-four years later, on this date, another hardy British soul, the explorer John Speke, distinguished himself by becoming the first European to see Africa's Lake Victoria, and then accidentally shooting and killing himself while hunting partridges.

(conveniently, the day before he was to debate his finding with his famous exploration partner, Richard  Burton - no, not that Richard Burton, the other one, the famous self circumciser, and translator of 1001 Arabian Nights and the Kama Sutra.)


September 15, 1885 -

P.T. Barnum's prize elephant Jumbo was struck dead by a freight train in St. Thomas, Ontario, Canada. It took 150 men to haul the carcass up an embankment, from whence it is taken to a taxidermist.

The stuffed Jumbo became a featured attraction in Barnum's circus.

Goodbye Jumbo.


September 15, 1890 -
It's the birthday of Agatha Christie (Vanessa Redgrave), born in Devon, England. She was a Red Cross nurse during World War I. She started reading detective novels because she found they took her mind off her troubles (her husband couldn't help sleeping with other women) and soon after, started writing her own.



Her big breakthrough book was her novel The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, which came out in 1926. It was the same year in which Christie had a fight with her husband, fled her own home, and was missing for ten days. There was a nationwide search. It was on the front pages of all the papers. And when she finally turned up, she was famous and all of her books were best-sellers.


September 15, 1928 -
Scottish bacteriologist and noted slob Alexander Fleming accidentally discovered that the mold penicillin had an antibiotic effect, on this date. Had he cleaned his laboratory every night and put all his things away like a good little boy, he never would have discovered penicillin, and half of us would be dead right now.



As I am deathly allergic to penicillin, his discovery has done little for me but I pass this along to you all.


September 15, 1954 -
In front of thousands of spectating New Yorkers at 51st and Lexington, Marilyn Monroe performed the now-famous skirt blowing scene during filming for The Seven Year Itch. The event basically boils down to a publicity stunt, as the whole thing was reshot later on a Hollywood soundstage.



Unfortunately, this event is the final straw in the Monroe - Dimaggio marriage and it soon comes undone.


September 15, 1963 -
In Birmingham, Alabama, Bobby Frank Cherry, Thomas Blanton, Herman Frank Cash and Robert Chambliss planted 15 dynamite sticks in the basement of the 16th Street Baptist Church, below the womens restroom. When the dynamite exploded, four little girls in the bathroom and were killed (Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Carole Robertson and Cynthia Wesley); more than 20 other parishioners also were injured.



Chambliss was later tried and convicted of murder; he was sentenced to life in prison in 1977. Two of his accomplices also were later sentenced to life in prison (Herman Cash died in 1994 without having been charged.)


September 15, 1972 -

Indictments were brought against the seven Watergate conspirators: James McCord, Frank Sturgis, Bernard L. Barker, Eugenio R. Martinez, Virgilio R. Gonzales, E. Howard Hunt (noted spy, novelist and possible Kennedy assassin, rumored to have been the man on the grassy knoll) and G. Gordon Liddy (noted rat connoisseur), on this date.



And so it goes

Happy 5776

Rosh Hashanah began last night, so we here at ACME are wishing our friends L’shanah Tovah.




September 14, 1952 -
Sometimes, when a man is alone, that's all you got is your dog.



Philip Andre Mickey Rourke, actor and small dog fancier, was born on this date.


September 14, 1964 -
The Irwin Allen sci-fi series Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, starring Richard Basehart, premiered on the ABC-TV on this date.



This is the longest-running of all Irwin Allen-produced science fiction series. It ran for four seasons, from 1964 to 1968.


September 14, 1965 -
The end of the Civil War was near ...

F-Troop premiered on ABC-TV on this date.



The name of the tribe that Wild Eagle belonged to was the Hekawe. In one episode it was explained that the name came about by two Indians falling off a cliff and one asking "Where the heck are we?" The original name of the tribe, the Fugawe (As in, "Where the Fugawe?"), was rejected by network censors.


September 14, 1965 -
One of the more bizarre sitcoms, My Mother the Car starring Jerry Van Dyke and Ann Sothern (as the car), premiered on this date.



Jerry Van Dyke agreed to star on the series after turning down the lead role on Gilligan's Island and an offer to join the cast of the The Andy Griffith Show.


September 14, 1967 -
Raymond Burr cruised the San Francisco streets with his muscular bodyguard when Ironside premiered on this date (there is no word on whether or not he was wearing his eponymously named nipple rouge during the shoot.)



In the pilot Ironside wears a bandage on his right hand. This was not makeup. Raymond Burr injured the first two fingers of his hand when he fell after being "shot".


September 14, 1972 -
America went up Walton's Mountain to visit with The Waltons on CBS-TV for the first time on this date.



Patricia Neal was cast as Olivia Walton in the pilot. She was unable to continue with her role, due to her past health problems, so the role was ultimately given to Michael Learned.


September 14, 1978 -
The TV show that helped launch Robin Williams career, Mork & Mindy, premiered on this date.



During casting, when asked to take a seat, Robin Willams sat in the chair upside down. Producer Gary Marshal selected him because "He was the only alien to audition."


Today in History:
September 14, 1814 -
Francis Scott Key had composed the lyrics to The Star-Spangled Banner after witnessing the massive British bombardment of Fort McHenry in Maryland during the War of 1812, on this date. Key, an American lawyer and social worker, watches the siege while under detainment on a British ship, and pens the famous words after observing that the US flag over Fort McHenry had survived the 1,800-bomb assault.



The lyrics were alter adopted to the British tune To Anacreon in Heaven, which had also served as Irish drinking song and a number of other songs. The Star-Spangled Banner was officially recognized as the national anthem in 1931.

The 40 feet long flag had been made by Baltimore widow Mary Young Pickersgill and her 13-year-old daughter just a month before the attack. In 1907 the flag was donated to the Smithsonian.


September 14 1849 -



Ivan Pavlov was born on this date. Pavlov was a Russian scientist who discovered that dogs drooled whenever bells were rung. Only after his death were his ideas discredited by a group of Swedish scientists who determined that dogs also drooled when a nice juicy steak was dangled in front of them.



In the decades since, science has repeatedly and conclusively demonstrated that dogs will sometimes drool and sometimes not drool.


September 14, 1812 -
Napoleon's army invaded the city of Moscow, on this date. He began the invasion of Russia in June of that year, hoping to continue his "One Europe, One Cuisine" Tour. The Russian forces kept retreating, burning the farmland as they went so the French wouldn't be able to draw provisions from the land.



The troops were exhausted and hungry by the time they reached Moscow on this day, in 1812. The gates of the city were left wide open. And as the French came through, they noticed that all over the city small fires had begun. The Russians had set fire to their own city. By that night, the fires were out of control.



Napoleon watched the burning of the city from inside the Kremlin, and barely escaped the city alive. The retreat began across the snow - covered plains, one of the great disasters of military history. Thousands of troops died from starvation and hypothermia. Of the nearly half million French soldiers who had set out in June on the invasion, fewer than 20,000 staggered back across the border in December.


September 14, 1901 -
President William McKinley succumbs to his gunshot wound, on this date - the third American president to be assassinated. He had won a landslide victory in the election of 1900. He had gone on a tour of the country, a victory tour, which he ended in Buffalo, New York, where the Pan-American Exposition was being held near Niagara Falls.



McKinley was shaking hands with a long line of people on September 6, when a 28-year-old anarchist from Cleveland named Leon Czolgosz came up to shake his hand. Czolgosz's right hand was wrapped in a handkerchief which concealed a gun. He shot the president twice, hitting him in the abdomen. At first it seemed as though the wound was minor and that McKinley would recover, but he died on this day in 1901. He died, historians believe, because he needed an infusion of fluids and nutrients, and the IV had not been invented yet.



It didn't help matters that Teddy Roosevelt kept peeking into his hospital room, shouting, "Is he dead yet? Am I president yet? Bully, bully!!!"


September 14, 1927 -
Legendary dancer Isadora Duncan was killed in Nice, France when her long silk scarf got tangled in the rear wheel of the convertible she's riding in on this date. Her neck was broken and an artery severed. Some accounts have her thrown against the pavement and dragged for 100 feet. The freak accident occurred in full view of a number of friends.



Strange but true fact - the mother of famed 40s comedy director Preston Sturges, who was known for her friendship with Isadora Duncan, gave her the very scarf that led to Duncan's freakish death.

Kids, remember what Gertrude Stein said, "affectations can be dangerous and Alice, where the hell is my hash pipe."


September 14, 1936 -
Surgeons Walter Freeman and James W. Watts performed America's first prefrontal lobotomy on a depressed, 63-year-old Kansas woman in Washington, D.C. They successfully create a lethargic dullard, and the duo hails the result for years to come as a medical triumph, despite the fact that two of their next twenty lobotomy subjects end as fatalities.



Here's a easy way you can remember this, "I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy."


September 14, 1938 -
Graf Zeppelin II, world's largest airship, (LZ 130) was the sister ship of the Hindenburg (LZ 129). Her design and construction were nearly identical to her predecessor: at 804 feet in length, these two ships remain the largest flying craft in history. By the time the Graf Zeppelin was completed, it was one of the largest flying craft in history. The ship was christened and made her first flight on this date.



The Graf Zeppelin ultimately flew a total of thirty missions, many for the Luftwaffe. She touched down on her last flight at 9:38 p.m. on August 20, 1939, ending the age of rigid airships.


September 14, 1982 -
Grace Kelly, American-born princess of Monaco, died after a high speed car crash the previous day. She and daughter Princess Stephanie were badly injured when their British Rover 3500 plunged into a ravine, tumbling 45 feet.



In the official version of events, Grace suffered a mild stroke while driving; however, although rumors persist that 17-year-old Princess Stephanie was actually behind the wheel. There is no truth to the rumor that she was engaging in an unnatural act with left-footed Mongolian bisexual traveling fish monger, a three legged farm animal and a silicon-based lubricant.

So dammit, please stop printing these lies.



And so it goes

I'm not sure it would have worked as 'Scrambled Eggs'

September 13, 1965 -
The Beatles released the single Yesterday in the US on this date (Act Naturally was on the B side.)



This is the most covered pop song of all time, over 3,000 versions recorded according to The Guinness Book Of World Records. For years, it was also the song with the most radio plays, but in 1999 BMI music publishing reported that You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin' had passed it. Still, at any given time, some version of Yesterday is probably being broadcast somewhere.


September 13, 1969 -
Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! made its CBS network debut on this date.



Shaggy is the only character (apart from Scooby himself) to be in every incarnation of the series.


September 13, 1974 -
The science fiction/ horror series Kolchak: The Night Stalker premiered on ABC-TV on this date.



Producer Dan Curtis and screenwriter Richard Matheson were both approached by Universal to work on the series. Although they had worked on the original made-for-TV movies, they both turned down the offer.


September 13, 1974 -
The Rockford Files, starring James Garner, was first broadcast on NBC-TV on this date.



David Chase, a writer/producer for the series, went on to create The Sopranos. An episode from The Sopranos first season shows a scene in a retirement home where the inhabitants are watching television. We can't see what they're watching but we can hear the theme to The Rockford Files playing clearly.


September 13, 1996 -
The family comedy based on the stand-up routines of Ray Romano, Everybody Loves Raymond, starring Ray Romano, Patricia Heaton  Brad Garrett, Doris Roberts and Peter Boyle, premiered on CBS-TV on this date.



Each episode ends with a plate of food (never the same two dishes) being offered to the viewer. After the show's final episode, instead of food a check with "no charge" on it was set in place of the plate.


September 13, 2000 -
Cameron Crowe's autobiographic film, Almost Famous, was released on this date.



When Cameron Crowe's mother appeared on the set for a cameo, Crowe made every effort to keep her away from Frances McDormand, who was playing a character based on her, so McDormand's interpretation of the part wouldn't be swayed. When he left the set for a few minutes on the first day of shooting, he returned to find McDormand and his mother having lunch together.


Today in History:
September 13, 1848 -
A 13-pound tamping iron is blown through the head of railroad construction foreman Phineas P.Gage, entering beneath the left cheekbone and exiting the top of his head. The metal bar lands 30 yards away, taking with it much of his left frontal lobe.



Gage never loses consciousness, even while the doctors examine his wound. Two months later, he is well enough to return home and resume an active life of work and travel.



The steel rod, along with a cast of Gage's head, and his skull, are now on display at Harvard Medical School's Warren Anatomical Museum.


September 13, 1899 -
Henry M. Bliss was coming home from work today and never came back. Mr. Bliss was enjoying his ride home near Central Park and 74th Street, when he stepped out of a streetcar and into the street and was struck by a taxicab. Bliss was rushed to a hospital but died from his injuries the next morning.

The cab driver Arthur Smith was arrested and charged with manslaughter. The charges were dropped after it was determined that Bliss’ death was unintentional. Bliss became the first pedestrian to be killed by an automobile in the United States.

On September 13, 1999, a hundred years to the day, Citystreets unveiled a historical marker at the site of the first American Pedestrian Fatality.


September 13, 1916 -
Mary the circus elephant was publicly executed in the Erwin, Tennessee railyard, after killing a drifter named Walter "Red" Eldridge the previous day.



The five-ton animal was hanged from a derrick car in front of 3,000 onlookers, and left hanging for half an hour.

Give the people what they want ... (Please folks, I am not encouraging the execution of any animal, especially mammals weighing over five tons.)


September 13, 1916 -



Roald Dahl was born on this date in Llandaff, South Wales. He was sent off to private boarding schools as a kid, which he hated except for the chocolates, Cadbury chocolates. The Cadbury chocolate company had chosen his school as a focus group for new candies they were developing. Every so often, a plain gray cardboard box was issued to each child, filled with eleven chocolate bars. It was the children's task to rate the candy, and Dahl took his job very seriously. About one of the sample candy bars, he wrote, "Too subtle for the common palate." He later said that the experience got him thinking about candy as something manufactured in a factory, and he spent a lot of time imagining what a candy factory might be like.



Today, he's best known for his children's book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and for the fact he ran off with his children's nanny after his wife, the actress Patricia Neal, recovered from a stroke. But even more interesting, a recently published biography of Dahl, purports that he was a spy for the British government during World War II, paid to sleep with wealthy U. S. women to gain information for the British government.

And you thought only 007 had a way with women.


September 13, 1940 -
The German Luftwaffe directly targeted Buckingham Palace during 'the Blitz' and dropped a bomb into the palace courtyard and detonated on impact on this date. The force of the explosion blew out all the inside windows of the palace. No one was seriously hurt and had the unintended effect of bonding the Royal Family with the people of England, as the Windsors did not evacuate London.



Queen Elizabeth (the queen's mother) narrowly averted serious injury and when asked about the incident said, "I am glad we have been bombed….it makes me feel like I can look the [heavily bombed] East End in the face."



And so it goes


Before you go - I found a couple of shots of me in the local newspaper at the Slice of Saugatuck yesterday

So you can you play; Find Kevin in the picture.