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Posts Archived Under Humor
The Milestone Mo-Tel today. Winners get one
free night. Losers get two. (That's the second
time we've used that joke today.) |
If the whole world loves a winner, we have a weekend full of love ahead of us. Let's get started!
The most obvious winners will be declared Thursday when either Clint Robertson or Brandy Kuentzel wins the right to become Donald Trump's latest Apprentice for one year. (We hope that the loser isn't stuck for two years ...) One of the three remaining teams on "The Amazing Race" will win a million smackers on Sunday. (Perhaps eating that sheep's head may have been worth it.) It's almost guaranteed that none of these winners will make Barbara Walters' list of the year's "Most Fascinating People," (most fascinating to her, anyway ...) but we’ll find out for sure Thursday. (Our guess for #1 on her list? The cameraman who smears the Vaseline all over the lens that photographs her.) And on Friday, they'll be handing out the Nobel Prizes. The Nobels aren't like the Oscars; everyone already knows who won and the winners have actually accomplished something that matters, rather than playing loveable oddballs.
Saturday we'll see some sports winners. In the afternoon, someone (Cam Newton? Andrew Luck? LaMichael James?) will win the Heisman Trophy as the nation's finest college football player, and in the evening, either Georges St-Pierre or Josh Koscheck will take the welterweight championship at UFC 124 in Montreal. We assume the combatants will not resort to wheeling around the ring in roller skates, but while it would be appropriate (given that Thursday marks the anniversary of their 1884 patent), we'd have to warn them that such a thing would be just plain dangerous.)
Sunday also marks the 10th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Bush v. Gore, which ensured that George W. Bush became the nation's 43rd president. Whether that made the country a winner or a loser, we'll leave up to you. Falling into a similar category is Larry King's retirement from his CNN talk show on Friday. (As with President Bush, we won't say whether that's a plus or a minus.)
Weary travelers were winners 85 years ago Sunday, when the Milestone Mo-Tel, the world's first motel (short for "motor hotel"), opened in San Luis Obispo, California.
If we stretch the definition of "winner" to include those whose birthdays fall this weekend, then we're lousy with winners. For example, Thursday sees the birthdays of both Margaret Hamilton (1902) and Redd Foxx (1922). Hamilton is best known for her role as the Wicked Witch of the West in the 1939 classic, "The Wizard of Oz." Despite her indelible portrayal of one of the screen's great villains, Hamilton loved children and was a lifelong advocate for charities that benefitted kids and animals. Foxx was someone whose work, on the other hand, was decidedly not for kids. A veteran of the black vaudeville entertainment venues known as the "Chitlin' Circuit," Foxx recorded a series of "party records" in the 1950s that were both filthy and hilarious. He reached a mainstream fame in the '70s when he starred in "Sanford and Son," where his frequent feigned heart attacks were one of the show's running gags. In a supreme irony, he suffered an actual heart attack while rehearsing for another television show, but no one believed was it real until it was too late.
Sunday would have been the 95th birthday of Frank Sinatra. The greatest popular singer of the 20th century, Sinatra was also an Oscar-winning actor, starred in numerous TV specials that consisted of nothing but him singing with his guests, and was the biggest attraction in Las Vegas when that title actually meant something.
Monday, we celebrate the 192nd birthday of Mary Todd Lincoln, wife of Abraham Lincoln who was criticized in her time for her extravagant and spendthrift ways, and committed to a psychiatric hospital by her son Robert. While she was undoubtedly depressed, wouldn't any woman who’d lived through the death of three sons and the murder of her husband (while sitting next to him) feel the same? She was eventually declared competent and released, but her health was broken, and she died three years later.
If birthday celebrants are winners, so too are those is show business who meet success, like performers and lovers of country music, who can celebrate the 83rd anniversary of the first broadcast of the Grand Ole Opry on Friday. The Opry has been a staple of radio and television in the decades since it debuted, highlighting the best in country, from Hank Williams and Minnie Pearl to Clint Black and Carrie Underwood. Someone who's appeared at the Opry (but has yet to be inducted into its member ranks) is Taylor Swift. Perhaps the Opry has been waiting for her to turn 21 - in which case, it need wait no longer! The Grammy-winning singer reaches her majority on Monday.
Thursday will see the annual airing of the Rankin-Bass animated Christmas special, "The Year without a Santa Claus," which features memorable turns by Snow Miser and Heat Miser (who are also not members of the Opry).
Friday is also the 55th anniversary of the "Mighty Mouse Playhouse's" television premiere. In TV's early days, broadcasters were desperate for material to air, so old movies and cartoons were natural fodder, and Paul Terry's "Mighty Mouse" cartoons were some of the oddest programs to come to the screen. Mini operatic melodramas, they featured the eponymous rodent singing his was through battles with the villainous Oil Can Harry. Mighty made a brief comeback in the 80s in a brilliant TV series produced by Ralph Bakshi, but he's been in retirement since self-appointed censor Donald Wildmon mistook the mouse's flower sniffing for drug use. (No, really.) Wildmon isn't the only well-intentioned, if-misguided, protector we mention, though, since Thursday is the anniversary of the founding of the John Birch Society, which has been protecting Americans from the Communists lurking under their beds for 52 years.
Legitimate do-gooders have something to celebrate this weekend, too. Thursday is the U.N's annual International Anti-Corruption Day, dedicated to wiping out, well, corruption and promoting the rule of law, and Friday is both Human Rights Day and the beginning of Human Rights Week.
We end by noting a delightful juxtaposition on Thursday. December 9, 1792, saw the first cremation in America, when statesman Henry Laurens died at his plantation in Charleston, South Carolina, and per his will, his body was burned. On the same date in 1886, Clarence Birdseye, inventor of frozen food was born. We're reminded of the choice Curly Howard was given in a Three Stooges short: to be burned at the stake or to have his head cut off. He opted for the former, on the reasoning that a hot stake's better than a cold chop. Good night!
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Kirk Douglas in 1956. The dimple
in his chin is so deep it has its
own gift shop. |
Don't they say that doing what you love keeps you young? If they don't, they ought to, as the lives of some of the celebrities we note this week stand as living proof of the connection between doing what you do and a long lifespan.
We'll start with the "babies" of the group, Christopher Plummer and Dick Van Dyke, who turn 81 and 85 respectively on Friday. Plummer and Van Dyke have pretty much done it all in their time, from dramas to farces to musicals Plummer's classical theatre chops are a little more developed, but Van Dyke's sitcom of the 1960s is still recognized as one of the finest and most influential ever, so we'll call it a draw.
Next on our list is spring chicken Eli Wallach, who turns 95 on Tuesday. Wallach began his acting career in the 1950s, with a series of performances out of the Method school of acting that so pervaded that decade. The "Method" (which has been over-hyped and misunderstood almost from the beginning) was a school of acting that emphasized personalized and naturalistic behavior on stage and screen, breaking away from the more florid or theatrical styles that had been the norm. Its foremost proponents were actors like Wallach, Marlon Brando, and James Dean, but a modified version of it is still seen in the performances of Robert De Niro, Dustin Hoffman, and Al Pacino. Getting back to our birthday boy, Wallach is still working, having acted in two movies this year, with (his health permitting) more on the way.
The champ, though, is Kirk Douglas, who turns 96 on Thursday. Douglas hit the screen like a thunderbolt in the late 1940s, and for the next 50 years, turned in a series of dynamic and artful performances that have few rivals for energy and power. He's also been outspoken in his politics, breaking Hollywood's blacklist by employing writers who went unhired because of their politics. The stroke he suffered in 1996 has impaired his ability to speak, but he continues to work, and as recently as 2009 appeared in an autobiographical one-man show.
Those aren’t the only events of note, of course. Why, Tuesday alone brings us the announcement of Sports Illustrated's Sportsman of the Year (it's New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees), the lighting of the U.S. Capitol's Christmas tree (the White House gets its turn on Thursday, the day after President Obama appears on "MythBusters"), the Luxury Travel Expo in Las Vegas (for those of you who have so much extra money you can't help but spend it on travel), and National Cotton Candy Day.
Wednesday is chock-a-block with events, too, particularly with birthdays of artists and humorists. In the former category, we have Diego Rivera (1886), the Mexican painter whose intricate and detailed murals were loaded with historical and political commentary. In the latter, we have two men whose work spans both categories and who were born on the same day in 1894. First, we have James Thurber, whose art defined the cartooning style of "The New Yorker," and whose short stories, including "The Catbird Seat" and "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" remain as perceptive and witty as when they were written. 1894's other multi-talented contribution is Elzie Segar, the cartoonist who created Popeye the Sailor. Segar created a unique world of comic adventures and characters that has rarely been equaled. Since his death in 1938, numerous ghosts have tried to keep the wackiness of his comic strip alive, but none have succeeded in finding his balance of thrills and laughs.
We close by remembering two tragedies, one markedly larger than the other. Wednesday is the 30th anniversary of the murder of John Lennon in front of New York's Dakota Apartments. Lennon was only 40 years old, and was just resuming his music career when he was struck down, forever robbing the world of his humor and songs.
The larger commemoration, is the anniversary of the December 7, 1941, bombing of the Pearl Harbor naval base in Hawaii, an even which brought the United States into World War II. The sneak attack by the Japanese cost the U.S. more than a dozen ships and 2,042 lives. When President Franklin D. Roosevelt addressed Congress the next morning, he called it "a date which will live in infamy," and it remains a date whose memory still resonates today.
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| Ladies' Day | By Dave Sikula
Wed, December 1, 2010, 12:01 am PST |
Rosa Parks. They wouldn't even
let her sit while booking her. |
Yesterday, we called attention to three historical wits (Swift, Twain, and Wilde), and today is the turn of more contemporary comics. Wednesday is the 75th birthday of filmmaker Woody Allen, and would have been the 70th birthday of comedian Richard Pryor. Allen is the Academy Award-winning director of such movies as "Annie Hall," "Bullets Over Broadway," "Radio Days," and "Hannah and Her Sisters." He'a been nominated for 16 Oscars (winning three), and has directed actors (Penelope Cruz, Michael Caine, Diane Keaton, Mira Sorvino, and Dianne Wiest – twice) to six. Pryor was the pioneering stand-up whose earthy and vulgar routines brought new life to live comedy in the 70s. He was loved and emulated by his peers (Jerry Seinfeld called him "The Picasso of our profession," and Bob Newhart described him as "the seminal comedian of the last 50 years"). As loved as he was by comedians and audiences, Hollywood didn't seem to know what to do with him, and, with only a few exceptions, his films were not always good. Plagued by addictions during his later life, he succumbed to multiple sclerosis at the age of 65.
Pryor and Allen aren't the only ones celebrating birthdays today. In 1891, James Naismith was trying to control a group of rowdy kids who were stuck indoors at the YMCA in Springfield, Massachusetts. Naismith nailed a couple of peach baskets to the walls, and invented "basket ball," thus giving birth to the hoops we know today. The game has changed slightly in the ensuing century, and will see a notable event Thursday when LeBron James makes his return to Cleveland, as the Heat take on the Cavs. We expect chaos to ensue, which is an odd way to begin National Stress-Free Family Holiday Month. Perhaps a round of Bingo would help everyone get along. Conveniently, December is "Bingo's Birthday Month," which aims to call attention one of America's other favorite pastimes.
If even more stress reduction is needed, fans can concentrate on soccer, as there are few diversions that are more sleep-inducing. Fortunately, FIFA will be on hand to remind us of the "beautiful game," as they'll be announcing on Thursday the unfortunate cities chosen to host the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.
We were surprised to see that France isn't in the running to host either of those competitions, but the French will be busy Thursday commemorating both Napoleon Bonaparte's 1804 self-coronation as Emperor of France, and the anniversary of the death of the Marquis de Sade, the aristocratic writer who lived a, shall we say, interesting lifestyle, that 200 years later, is still too hot for prime time - and for The Spark.
Let's move on to something a little more wholesome - holiday shopping, for example. And what would the holidays be without toys and ties? December is both Safe Toys and Gifts Month and National Tie Month. While we all want kids to be healthy and safe, we kind of long for the days of our youth when toys were made of metal with sharp edges, or loaded with cannonballs. Oh, well, better to stick with a nice cravat for Dad. It's dull, but won't put his eye out.
We tip our hats to three notable women over the next couple of days. Thursday would have been the birthday of the ultimate opera diva Maria Callas. Callas was born in New York in 1923 and by her 30s, had become one of the biggest names in opera history. Unfortunately, her singing and acting style - not to mention her fiery temperament and life off-stage - made her highly controversial.
On December 1, 1952, the New York Daily News reported that former Army GI George Jorgensen had returned from Denmark as Christine Jorgenson, becoming the first person to undergo a widely-publicized sexual reassignment surgery. Jorgensen spent the remaining 37 years of her life lecturing and performing as a cabaret singer, delivering such tongue-in-cheek numbers as "I Enjoy Being a Girl."
Three years later, African-American civil rights worker Rosa Parks was arrested in Montgomery, Alabama, for refusing to give her seat to a white passenger. Her arrest sparked a boycott of the entire Montgomery bus system that ended only when a Supreme Court order ruled that Montgomery's segregated bus system unconstitutional.
A iconic fictional woman made her debut on December 2, 1947, when Tennessee Williams' masterpiece, "A Streetcar Named Desire" opened on Broadway. While Marlon Brando's brutish Stanley Kowalski got a lot of attention, the play actually focuses on the travails of the DuBois sisters, Stella and Blanche. Blanche DuBois came to represent the epitome of the cracked Southern belle, whose genteel ways cwere no match for the modern world. The role spans a wide emotional range, and has always been catnip for actresses wanting to test their mettle, including Jessica Tandy (the original), Vivien Leigh, Jessica Lange, Ann-Margret, Rachel Weisz, and Cate Blanchett.
In what may - or may not - be a notable event for women, we note in passing that December 1, 1953, saw the publication of the first issue of "Playboy" magazine.
At sundown on Wednesday, Hanukkah begins. This eight day celebration commemorates the rededication of Jerusalem's Second Temple in the 2nd century BCE.
Lastly, we note that December 1 is both World AIDS Day and the Day (With)Out Art. The former is dedicated to raising awareness of AIDS and HIV, while the latter is devoted to the artists who were lost to AIDS and the works of art they never produced.
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All right; so those weren't
Oscar Wilde's last words - but
they should have been |
We'll start the day by mentioning three of the wittiest men who ever lived. It's the birthday of both Jonathan Swift (b. 1667) and Mark Twain (b. 1835), and the anniversary of the death in 1900 of Oscar Wilde. Swift was the Irish cleric and satirist who wrote "A Modest Proposal" (which purportedly advocated that the cure for Irish economic woes was selling its children to be eaten) and "Gulliver's Travels" (which started out as a satire of European politics, but has evolved to become fodder for Jack Black to show once again how annoyingly unfunny he is). We've written about Twain in previous Sparks, but we’ll add once again that his "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" is considered by many to be the "Great American Novel," and that his autobiography was published a couple of weeks ago. Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was one of Ireland and England's most celebrated wits, with an epigram for every occasion. He wrote plays, books, and poems, including one of the most perfect comedies ever, "The Importance of Being Earnest." In 1895, at the height of his fame, he was arrested and tried for his homosexuality, and eventually sentenced to two years of hard labor. A broken man by the time he was released in 1897, he left London, ending his days in a shabby Parisian hotel.
On a less gloomy Gallic note, we note that on this day in 1886, the Folies Bergère staged its first revue. The theatre was dedicated to music hall and vaudeville-type performances, and in its time has featured such stars as Charlie Chaplin, W.C. Fields, Elton John, Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, and even Benny Hill. If you're looking for racier entertainment, we can point you to a double shot today, as CBS will air the annual "Victoria's Secret Fashion Show," and the 2011 Pirelli calendar will be released. The TV show, a parade of beautiful women walking the runway in their underwear is a beloved holiday tradition for men (and lingerie-loving women) everywhere, while the Pirelli calendar offers many of the same models, only sans the underwear, in artistic photos. (We'd offer more links to the calendar, but this is a family-friendly blog, after all.)
We're so family-friendly, that we'll offer some programming to counter the fashion show. Tonight also brings the annual airing of the stop-motion animated classic, "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" and NBC's special "Christmas in Rockefeller Center," which will feature appearances by Susan Boyle, Mariah Carey, Sheryl Crow, Jackie Evancho, Josh Groban, Annie Lennox, Kylie Minogue, and Jessica Simpson The extravaganza will climax with the lighting of the Center's tree (this year, it's a 74-foot Norway spruce from Mahopac, New York).
The weather forecast for New York on Tuesday evening calls for rain and a low of 53°F, not exactly winter weather, so we guess it's appropriate that the U.N.'s Climate Change Conference is being held this week in sunny Cancun, Mexico (Tuesday's forecast high: 82°F). Speaking of "hot," Tuesday is the 28th anniversary of the release of Michael Jackson's "Thriller," which became the biggest-selling album of all time, in addition to inspiring prisoners around the globe to replicate Jacko's signature moves.
As unique as Michael Jackson in their own ways were Winston Churchill and Irma S. Rombauer. Churchill was the Nobel Prize-winning author, historian, orator, and two-time British Prime Minister who led his country through World War II (and was promptly bounced out of office afterward as thanks) and whose 136th birthday occurs today. Rombauer was the St. Louis teacher and housewife whose cooking classes were so popular that, on this day in 1931, she self-published her book of recipes under the title "The Joy of Cooking." The book has never been out of print, and although it has undergone numerous revisions and alterations in the decades since, it remains one of America's favorite cookbooks.
Finally, we remind you that today is Computer Security Day, so take a moment to check your security settings and virus updates, won't you? We want to see you back safely next time.
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"Give me a minute! I have to finish this
"Stanley and Livingstone" cue! |
Wednesday:
Today's most notable event may be the 41st anniversary of the debut of "Sesame Street" on what was then known as "National Educational Television," but is now called PBS. (We guess the powers that be didn't want their audiences think they might be getting smarter while watching the boob tube.) In the decades since, the show has educated generations of Americans through its use of humor, music, and pop culture references.
Some of those references are calculated to appeal less to kids than to their parents, just like the ones in the Warner Bros. cartoons of the 1930s, '40s, and '50s. And being of a cartoonish disposition, we couldn't help but notice that it's the 119th birthday of Carl Stalling, the man who wrote the scores for all those "Looney Tunes" and "Merrie Melodies." How many did he write? Well, over 22 years, he wrote complete scores for more than 700 animated shorts -- or one every ten days. That's a lot of notes.
More succinct was journalist Henry Morton Stanley, who on this date in 1871 located missing missionary Dr. David Livingstone in what is now Ujiji, Tanzania. After an eight-month, 7,000-mile trip, Stanley allegedly greeted the good doctor with the words, "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?," a phrase familiar to even thos people who have no idea who either Stanley or Livingstone was.
Lucky was the person who lived in ignorance of the alleged curse of the Hope Diamond. Despite little hard evidence, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries all sorts of ill-fortune was attributed to the stone. Supposedly, it was responsible for any number of suicides and deaths among those who had owned it since the 17th century. Its last owner was New York diamond merchant Harry Winston, who donated it to the Smithsonian Institution on this day in 1958 – something that seems to have harmed neither the museum nor Winston's company in the years since.
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