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"Hey, shouldn't you be gettin' back to work or somethin'?"
Greetings once again from The Spark. We don't know about
you, but last week's epic nearly killed us in the writing, so this week's
will be shorter, and, we hope, sweeter
Monday:
Let's begin by noting that it's Ask a Stupid Question Day, created by teachers to let their students ask away
without fear of mockery. We agree that the idea is a good one, for those
questions may well lead to good answers, though probably not as good as the
one Albert Einstein asked in 1905, when the physics journal Annalen der Physik published his paper "Does the Inertia of a Body Depend Upon Its
Energy-Content?" and got the answered "E=mc²." We’re not claiming to understand either the
question or the answer, but physicists
sure did.
That wasn't the only question answered on this day, though. In 1822, French
linguist Jean-Francois
Champollion announced that he had deciphered
the Rosetta Stone. For those unwilling to ask, it’s an engraved slab that
had been discovered in 1799 in Rashid (or Rosetta), Egypt, and combined
ancient hieroglyphics with Egyptian and Greek letters. Champollion’s
deciphering of the text gave archaeologists their first real means to interpret ancient pictographs.
It’s been on display in the British Museum since 1802, and is the most-visited object in that
institution to this day.
If you're still interested in trivia, we point you to the small town of Lancaster, PA. In 1777, it was the capital of the United States -- but
for only one day. Speaking of the capital reminds us of politics, which
reminds us of cartoonist Thomas Nast, born on this day in 1840. Nast was, among other things, the man who gave us the Republican elephant, the Democratic donkey, Uncle Sam, and the modern depiction
of Santa Claus.
Not so jolly was Henry Ford. In 1908, Ford’s first Model T rolled off the assembly line and went on sale
Oct. 1 for $825 (around $25,000 in modern currency). The automobile soon became a national sensation, opening up personal transportation for the masses. By
1925, Ford's assembly line technique had become so efficient that the price
of the car had dropped to $265 -- or just under $10,000 today).
Turning to television, we see that today is not only the 56th anniversary of Tonight
-- which soon became The Tonight Show hosted by Steve Allen (and today is the 90th birthday of Steve's widow, Jayne Meadows). We also
see that coming up on the October 1st is the 48th anniversary of Johnny
Carson taking over the Tonight
host's chair that he'd occupy for the next 29 years. Unfortunately, NBC, not
sensing any historical value in the show, erased most of the tapes of the show's early years. In fact,
it's only in the last couple of weeks that the audio track of the first three minutes of Carson's first show surfaced after decades of being
lost. (Unfortunately, the video is still missing.) Tonight was a
real gamble on the part of NBC executive Sylvester "Pat" Weaver (father of Sigourney Weaver, by the way), in that no one knew if anyone would stay up
into the wee hours to watch TV. I think we know the answer to that particular
question nowadays ... (For those who need help, though, it is National Coffee Day.)
We see that the new season of Sesame Street begins today, but we assume we won't be seeing any
sign of Katy Perry.
Tuesday:
In 1901, Ed Sullivan was born. Sullivan came to fame in the 1920s and '30s
covering Broadway and Hollywood gossip (not to mention his bitter feuds with rival columnist Walter Winchell). From 1948 to 1971, though, he became in integral part
of American culture by hosting a weekly variety show that featured singers,
plate spinners, ventriloquists, comedians,
and everything in between in an attempt to entertain every part of the audience.
Variety shows like Sullivan's have all but disappeared from the
airwaves, but there's one that began decades before his program and continues
to the present day -- this day especially, as, following the tragic floods
in Tennessee this spring, the Grand Ole Opry will return to its home to continue its 85-year tradition
of broadcasting the finest in country music.
That's not the only show tonight, though. On PBS, Ken Burns's The Tenth Inning premieres, continuing his 1994 series
on the history of baseball. Ironically, the show airs on the 90th anniversary of one
of the game's greatest scandals: the indictment of eight members of the Chicago White Sox, who were accused of throwing the 1919 World Series to the Cincinnati Reds.
Gambling itself may be a disease, but it’s not one that can be cured with antibiotics, like penicillin, which Alexander Fleming discovered on this day in 1928. Dr. Fleming noticed that
one of the molds in his lab was killing bacteria. Within months, he had
released it to the world, giving doctors an irreplaceable tool in the
treating of disease. (Speaking of gambling, we’d like to think we could win a
bet that the transition into that paragraph was one of the most awkward
ever.)
Wednesday:
On the docket today: the 110th birthday of singing cowboy Gene Autry. Autry had worked as a ranch hand in his youth, but
realized his future lay in entertainment. By 1928, he was singing on the
radio; by 1929, he was making records;
and by 1934, he was making movies.
The pictures were cheaply made, but from 1936 to 1954 (with time out for
service in World War II), he was one of the top-grossing stars in Hollywood.
He was able to parlay his screen fame into a broadcasting empire
and ownership of the (then) California Angels. When he died in 1998 (a mere three days after turning 91), he was one
of the wealthiest men in America and remains the only person with five stars
on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Thursday:
You ever played with a Frisbee?
Of course you have -- well, either a Frisbee or a generic flying plastic disc. In 1958, the Wham-O company patented the toy, which was originally named
the "Pluto Platter," but got its present name when Wham-O executives
heard that Boston college kids (who were used to sailing pie plates from the
local Frisbie Pie Company) were calling the platters "frisbies," and the
rest is marketing history.
We don't believe they had Frisbees in Bedrock
(after all, everything in that town is made of rock, which doesn’t tend to
sail real well), but if they did, we would have found out about them starting
50 years ago tonight, when The Flintstones premiered in prime time on ABC.
While the Frisbee and The Flintstones were good ideas, tonight is
the chance to celebrate not-so-good ideas, as the annual Ig Nobel Prizes will be awarded for discoveries "that cannot, or
should not, be reproduced." In other words, they're the gold standard
for bad ideas.
In 1954, singer and actress Julie Andrews
made her Broadway debut, starring in the musical The Boy Friend, the day before she turned 19. (She, of course,
turns 75 tomorrow.)
On a sadder note, it was on this day in 1955, that actor James Dean was killed in a car crash. Dean had made only a few films (though
he'd made numerous appearances on live television dramas), but his personality and acting style influenced and
impacted a generation of Americans and actors.
Friday:
Beginnings and endings today:
In 1890, both Yosemite National Park and Yellowstone National
Park were established by the U.S. Congress.
In 1957, the words "In God We Trust" made their first appearance on U.S. paper currency. (Frankly, we were surprised it was so late in American
history.)
In 1968, George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead opened, beginning a cycle that has subjected audiences to an endless series of zombie and vampire movies. Talk about not dying!
For those who can't get enough Disney (in which number we do not include
ourselves), in 1971, Walt Disney World opened in Orlando, FL, followed in 1982 by the EPCOT Center. EPCOT, which is an acronym for “Experimental Prototype
Community of Tomorrow” was intended by Uncle Walt
to be a testing ground for new and innovative domestic theories and products,
soon turned into just another tourist trap. Oh, well; the best-laid plans of
mice ...
On the same day that EPCOT opened, Sony introduced its first compact disc player (the CDP-101,
which looks about as big as a Buick). While nowadays, the CD is just about as
dead as vinyl, it was, in its time, beyond ultra-modern.
The farewell is from Babe Ruth, whose name has come to be synonymous with baseball, and
while his hitting prowess speaks for itself, he’d be a Hall of Famer for his pitching alone. He was one of the greatest left-handers of all
time, winning nearly 100 games in his career. In 1933, he made his final appearance on the mound, beating his former team, the Boston Red Sox, 6-5. He pitched all nine innings, giving up twelve hits
(no strikeouts), and hitting a homer.
Finally, today is International Raccoon
Appreciation Day. If only it were Weasel
Appreciation Day, we could feel sorry for Tony Hayward,
who's stepping down as the head of British Petroleum.
Saturday:
Today's birthdays include three of the greatest comedians in showbiz history.
First is Groucho Marx (1890), the most verbose of the Marx Brothers, who turned insults and wisecracks into an art form. Second is Bud Abbott
(1895), who partnered for years with Lou Costello, and who is generally
considered the greatest straight man
of all time. Last is George
"Spanky" McFarland,
the child actor who became the leader of the kid group known as either "Our Gang" or "The Little Rascals."
Two other birthdays are of men who couldn't be more different. 1452 saw the
birth of England's King Richard III. Shakespeare painted Richard as a manipulator who lied and murdered his way to the
throne, but recent reappraisals have called him either benevolent or, at
worst, benign. The other is Mohandas Gandhi (1869), better known as Mahatma Gandhi, whose nonviolent
policies led to the independence of India from the British Empire.
In that period of history (the late 19th century), that Empire spanned the globe, so that it was the perfect atmosphere
for the fictional Phileas Fogg
to make his October 2, 1872 wager that he could travel around the world in eighty days. Fogg used almost every means of transportation available
to him in those less-advanced times, except a hot-air balloon, which makes this week's International Balloon Fiesta
in Albuquerque, NM, slightly ironic.
Three anniversaries that we've tried to link together, but just can't find a commonality: In 1919,
President Woodrow Wilson suffered a massive stroke, which left him partially paralyzed and unable to fulfill
his duties, so until his recovery, the country was basically run by his wife Edith. Charles M. Schulz's comic strip Peanuts began running. Schulz ended the strip in 2000, and
in an odd twist of fate, died the day before the last Sunday page ran.
Finally in 1959, The Twilight Zone premiered. Even though it ran only five seasons,
it's still the gold standard for creepy television, and its guitar-riff theme song,
which signifies something odd happening, is known to even those who never saw
the show.
Sunday:
Let's begin the end of the week by wishing Barack and Michelle Obama a happy 18th wedding anniversary. (And just to remind you, Mr. President, porcelain is the
traditional gift.)
Like the "Odd Couple" juxtaposition of Gandhi and Richard III above, today's
pairing is just as jarring. In 1873, Emily Post was born. She devoted her life to the gospels of etiquette
and good manners. On the other hand, we have Harvey Kurtzman, born in 1902. Kurtzman gave us, among other things, Mad Magazine (the original, funny version), and his sense of humor has
influenced pretty much everyone from the Pythons to the writers of the National Lampoon
(again, the original, funny version), who went on to create or inspire
everything from Animal House to Saturday Night Live, and even David Letterman. By extension, then, Kurtzman influenced almost every American
comedian and comedy movie of the second half of the Twentieth Century.
There are exceptions, though, such as The Andy Griffith Show, which premiered in 1960, or The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961). The contrast of the two shows, with their
respective rural and urban perspectives, set the standards for television
comedies for the next ten years, even if they were neither particularly
satirical nor Kurtzmanesque.
We'll close the week by mentioning that it’s the 15th anniversary of O.J. Simpson being acquitted of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman, and then pausing while you say,
"That's fifteen years ago? Wow."
See you next time!
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