It's a slow day at CarTalk, a rainy and cool MLK Day in LA; but not as cold as the rest of the US, I saw the Giant-Packer game last night!
I was looking over some of my old posts and I was reminded of a funny site I once posted about. I think it's good enough to give you all a chance to see it again. A compendium of suggestive, mysogynist and just plain weird statements uttered by your favorite comic book characters. Enjoy. http://www.yesbutnobutyes.com/archives/2007/03/top_15_unintent.html

courtesy vimo.com

This date marks exactly one year until this endless election is over and we inaugurate the 44th President of the United States. ...sigh.....God have mercy on the Republic!

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Quiz: Which statement is false?
A) The song White Christmas was written by a Jewish man.
B) The song Dixie was written in New York City
C) The Gettysburg Address was not written by Abe Lincoln.
D) The Pledge of Allegiance was written by a Socialist.

Yesterday's Question answered below: Which director did the first Bugs Bunny cartoon? Chuck Jones, Bob Clampett, Tex Avery or Frank Tashlin?
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History for 1/21/2008
Birthdays: Leadbelly (Harlan Ledbetter),Thomas J."Stonewall" Jackson, J.Carol Naish, Tele Savalas, Christian Dior, Placido Domingo is 67, Wolfman Jack, Akeem Olajuwon, Paul Scofield, Robby Benson, Jack Nicklaus, Benny Hill, Emma Bunton- Baby Spice of the Spice Girls, Gena Davis

1198- THE THIRD CRUSADE DECLARED- In reaction to the news of Salladin's capture of Jerusalem, King Henry II of England, Phillip Augustus of France and Conrad the Emperor of Germany "take the Cross", decide to invade the Holyland. Henry died before the army departed and was replaced by his son Richard the Lionhearted. Every morning before breakfast and every night before retiring, all the knights of the Crusade would raise one steel-clad fist towards the east, and to the sound of massed trumpets they would shout: " AEIDEUVA, AEIDEUVA, SANCTUS SEPULCHORUM!!" "Help, Help to the Holy Sepulchre!".

1789- The first American novel published- The Power of Sympathy: An Epistolary Romance by William Hill Brown.

1793- KING LOUIS XVI GUILLOTINED- For three years since the Bastille fell the French King tried to play a constitutional monarch while conspiring with the other European monarchs to crush the French Revolution. It was a game that was too subtle for him. When foreign armies invaded France and declared their intention to remake Louis an absolute ruler, the revolutionary government condemned him to death. Citizen Capet, so named for an old family name of French kings, mounted the scaffold at Place de La Concorde currently where the U.S. Embassy is. He tried to speak to the people but the drummers were ordered to drown him out. As the blade fell his chaplain shouted: "Son of Saint Louis, ascend to Heaven!" The revolutionaries then stuck his head between his legs and threw him in a hole. Where the site of the Chapel Expiatore is today. The court executioner, Charles Henri Samson, wore pistols under his coat in case people tried to rush the guillotine. He usually never felt remorse for his victims ( "I am not killing them, the State is" ) but this one bothered him. He stayed away from home for two nights and would later hide escaped political prisoners in his cellar.

1861- SECESSION! COLLAPSE! President-elect Lincoln was still packing his bags in Springfield and writing out the luggage tags in his own hand "A.Lincoln, White House, Washington, D.C.", while state after state of the South voted to leave the Union and join the new Confederacy. On this date Mississippi senator and former Secretary of War Jefferson Davis resigned from the Congress. As he left the Senate Georgia senator Robert Toombs declared out loud to the Speakers chair:" The Union sir, is Dissolved !" Toombs had to hire a carriage to take him South because his personal servants had run off to be free. The Mormons of Utah were in an open state of rebellion, New Jersey and New York City talked of secession, California talked of pulling out of the union and joining Oregon to make a new country called TransPacifica. American mercenaries under a renegade named Walker were trying to set up an independent country in Baja California. Crowds in Baltimore proclaimed Abe Lincoln would never get to Washington alive. Outgoing President James Buchanan said gravely: "I fear I may be the Last President of the United States..".

1916- The National Board of Review outlawed nudity in Hollywood movies.

1935- the conservation group The Wilderness Society created.

1938 -Max Fleischer tells his New York cartoon studio they are relocating to Florida.

1938- George Melies, the father of Motion Picture Special Effects, died selling chocolates in a Paris train station -Gare du Norde.

1958- BADLANDS- Teenagers Charlie Starkweather and Carol Ann Fugate kill her family and go on a Bonnie & Clyde style crime spree throughout Nebraska killing 11 people. When they were caught Starkweather pleaded self defense, even against the murder of Fugates infant baby brother. He went to the electric chair. Carol Ann Fugate did twenty years, yet always denied she was anything more than an unwilling accomplice. Starkweather had a 'James Dean-Marlon Brando' leatherjacket look and the two teen killers seemed to typify America's dread of juvenile delinquency and the 'degenerate Rock and Roll' culture of the 1950's. Their story inspired several films including 'Badlands" .

1991- Disney's Beauty and the Beast becomes the first animated film ever nominated for a Best Picture Oscar.
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Yesterday's Question: Which director did the first Bugs Bunny cartoon? Chuck Jones, Bob Clampett, Tex Avery or Frank Tashlin?

Answer: This has always been a point of debate. The traditionally accepted version is that the first Bugs Bunny Cartoon was 1940's A Wild Hare directed by Tex Avery. But the prototype screwy wabbit appeared in an earlier form in 1938 Porky's Duck Hunt, directed by Bugs Hardaway,( apologies to Larry Loc,who pegged it first!) The model sheet of the anonymous character was labeled Bug's Bunny. The rabbit we all recognize was in a Wild Hare, and not called Bugs Bunny until 1941's Chuck Jones short Elmer's Pet Rabbit.

Question: Which director did the first Bugs Bunny cartoon? Chuck Jones, Bob Clampett, Tex Avery or Frank Tashlin?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered : Why are Sam Spade and Sherlock Holmes grateful to Edgar Allen Poe?
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History for 1/20/2008
Birthdays: King Charles III of Spain, Richard Henry Lee- signer of the Declaration of Independence, Frederico Fellini, Patricia O’Neal, Mario Lanza, David Lynch, George Burns, DeForest Kelly, Edwin Buzz Aldrin the second astronaut to walk on the moon, Arte Johnson, Lorenzo Lamas, Bill Maher is 52, Rainn Wilson

1779- The English dramatic actor David Garrick died. Supposedly his last words were when asked “Is it hard to die?” Garrick replied:” Dying is not Hard. Comedy is Hard.”

1908- The Sullivan Ordinance barred women from smoking in public facilities. One hundred years later, nobody can smoke in public facilities!

1920- The American Civil Liberties Union founded by Roger Baldwin.

1924- WAR ON THE MAFIA- In 1924 the Mafia was almost completely destroyed. By who? Benito Mussolini. While not yet Il Duce but merely Italy’s Prime Minister Benito had had enough of the crime family clans in Sicily and sent a huge army to crush them. The blackshirted jackbooted regiments marched across the island arresting 11,000, with hundreds falling before firing squads. Mussolini declared victory and many of the surviving dons fled to America where Prohibition was providing great new opportunities for crooks.

1936- King George V of England died. In great pain from incurable cancer, only recently a doctor admitted getting instructions from Edward VIII to euthanize him with a strong shot of cocaine and morphine. The doctor timed his offing of the king so the news would be out with the morning newspapers instead of the trashier afternoon tabloids.
His Majesties last words were reported to be:" How goes the Empire? " He actually winced at the sloppy way the injection was done and said: " Oww! G--Damn You!".

1937- Franklin D. Roosevelt inaugurated for his second term after defeating Gov. Alf Landon of Kansas. He is the first president to be inaugurated in January instead of the customary March 4th. The Depression still raged despite all his efforts, he gives the inaugural speech decrying the rampant poverty in the U.S. "I see one third of the nation, ill-housed, ill-fed, ill-clothed, living in conditions far beneath the minimum standards we regard as decent, etc."

1938-The first true animator, Emile Cohl, died while headed for the Paris premiere of Disney's"Snow White and the Seven Dwarves". Cohl was so poor that the electricity in his flat had been turned off and the candles had ignited his beard. Angry he was never recognized in his time, he once said: "the French prefer their artists with marble and flowers on top." An Italian sculptor subscribed funds to build a statue to Cohl in Paris. Walt Disney and Dave Fleischer donated money. The sculptor took the money and skipped town, the statue was never built.

1949- FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover gave Shirley Temple a pen that shoots tear gas.

1953- The Birth of Little Ricky on the I Love Lucy show drew a larger viewing audience than the televised inauguration of President Dwight Eisenhower.

1961- John F. Kennedy gave his famous inaugural speech:” Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” Outgoing President Eisenhower disliked JFK and was angry that his election seemed a repudiation of his policies, so almost nothing was said between them in the limousine during the drive to the ceremony. John Kennedy also went through the day hatless, inaugurating the fashion. Before JFK, a man was not fully dressed without a fedora or cap of some sort.

1982- Rock star Ozzie Osbourne was hospitalized in Des Moines Iowa after biting the head off a dead bat thrown on stage during a concert. At another concert with Lou Reed, Ozzy picked up a straw filled with ants and snorted it up his nose so his kids could watch ants crawling out of his mouth, nostrils and tear ducts. ROCK AND ROLL BABY!!

1982- SONY introduced the Camcorder, the personal video camera.

1986- The worlds first computer virus, Brain, was sent out over the internet.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: Why are Sam Spade and Sherlock Holmes grateful to Edgar Allen Poe?

Answer: In 1841 Edgar Allen Poe wrote The Murders in the Rue Morgue, the first true detective story. It’s hero C. Auguste Dupin, was based on a real French policeman named Vidocq who adopted disguises to infiltrate criminal hangouts.

I just learned of the passing of veteran character actor Allan Melvin at age 84. Headlines just mention him as the butcher in the Brady Bunch, but he had a long pedigree in TV and TV Animation.
He was a regular on classic TV shows like Sgt. Bilko, Ben Casey and McHales' Navy, but at Hanna & Barbera he was the voice of MAGILLA GORILLA, H.R. PUFNSTUFF and one of the BANANA SPLITS.
He contributed his voice talents to other cartoons like DYNOMUTT, SECRET SQUIRREL, KWIKY KOALA, CHALLENGE OF THE GOBOTS, FOOFER, WACKY & PACKY, GUMMI BEARS, ELECTRO, HONG KONG PHOOEY, THE SECRET LIFE OF WALDO KITTY and many more. His file at IMDB reads like a digest of classic 1960s television.

Though I never met him, I worked on some of the stuff he voiced. And as a young sprout I certainly was entertained by him. So thank you Allan, for making us all smile!

So the Director's Guild signed a deal after only six days of negotiating. This now puts the public pressure back onto the WGA to request talks. Lately the employers had looked like the ones refusing to talk, but by this agreement they are saying that they can negotiate a fair deal for the new media rights the WGA is after. They say..... John Wells, former WGA president and writer-producer of ER and the later seasons of the West Wing has publicly called the deal a good one. The WGA seems ready to take the offer of informal talks and start back to the table next week. They say they are not meeting with the AMPTP but the reps of several studios. We'll see. The 839 Animation Guild Blog has a good detailed explanation of what went down and the reactions http://animationguildblog.blogspot.com
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Quiz: Why are Sam Spade and Sherlock Holmes grateful to Edgar Allen Poe?

Answer to yesterday’s question below: What is the origin of the phrase- No Strings Attached?
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History for 1/19/2008
Birthdays: James Watt, Edgar Allen Poe, Robert E. Lee, Paul Cezanne', Janis Joplin would have been 64, Tipi Hedren is 78, Slobodan Milosovic’, radio star Ish Kabibble, Dolly Parton, Michael Crawford, Desi Arnez Jr., Chic Young, Guy Madison, Richard Lester, John H. Johnson publisher of Ebony and Jet Magazines, Jean Stapleton is 85, Fritz Weaver, Sean Wayans, Robin MacNeill, Paul Rodriquez, Antoine Fuqua, Drea Di Matteo is 36, Bart the Bear-1977 Bear who starred in movies like Clan of the Cave Bear, The Bear, White Fang and Legends of the Fall

379 A.D. Valentinian Ist was a great Roman emperor with strange mood swings. He outlawed the original Biblical birth control method, called exposure; in other words leaving unwanted babies in the forest. Another time he had some stableboys crucified for letting the hounds go too early during a hunt. When some Barbarians crossed the Rhine and sacked a few villages Valentinian got his legions together and burned down half of Germany. He only stopped for the winter and was preparing to continue in the spring when on this day a delegation of tribal chiefs came to ask for peace. They explained that it wasn't their idea to make war, just some of the younger hotheads in the tribe. They said that the Emperor was overreacting. Valentinian got so enraged by this that he raised his fists, turned purple and before he uttered a word broke a blood vessel and fell over stone dead. His general Theodosius became emperor.

1633- Thomas Morton was twice deported by the Pilgrims for holding “licentious Maypole celebrations” at his Indian trading post. This day he returned to England and tried to have the Massachusetts Bay Colony’s charter revoked. The King probably refused because that might make the whole crowd of buckle-shoed killjoys return home!

1729- British Restoration playwright William Congreve died. He willed all his property to Henrietta, the Duchess of Marlborough. But then the Duchess did something a bit odd. She had a deathmask made of Congreve’s face and attached it to a life size manequin. She ate and conversed with the dummy all day and slept with it at night. She insisted her servants wait upon the dummy and treat it when she felt it was ill. When she died she was buried with the dummy.

1829 Johann Von Goethe published Faust Part 1.

1840- Explorer Lt. Charles Wilkes claimed all of the continent of Antarctica for the United States. He was on a scientific expedition to chart the South Seas and Southern polar waters. Wilkes was really good at exploring and charting but he was such a horrible disciplinarian as a captain he was courtmartialed upon his return. Wilkes’ erratic behavior may have been a model for Herman Melville’s Captain Ahab in his novel Moby Dick.

1853- Guisseppi Verdi's Il Trovatore with the famous Anvil Chorus premiered in Rome.

1919- Famed dancer of the Ballet Russe Vasclav Nijinsky danced his last dance at a hotel in San Moritz Switzerland. He later became an incarcerated mental patient and underwent numerous extreme therapies until his death in 1950.

1940- The Three Stooges do their impression of Hitler and the top Nazis in the Columbia Pictures short comedy “You Natzy Spy”. Moe Howard is still the best Hitler impersonator of all time. “Hail-Hail-Hailstone of Moronica! Waahoo!”

1955- President Eisenhower held the first news conference that was filmed and shown on television. It was held in the treaty room of the State Department. Eisenhower was famous for his ability to speak at great length and never say anything of substance. “This day, My Fellow Americans, more than at any other time, ahead of us lies the Future!”

1961- The first episode of the Dick Van Dyke Show filmed.

1979- Wendy O. Williams, mohawk-haired lead singer of the punk band the Plasmatics was arrested in Milwaukee for masturbating herself with a sledgehammer on stage.

1985- Bruce Springsteen's Born in the USA peaked the pop charts at #9.

1991-Eastern Airlines ceased operations and goes out of business. Chairman and former astronaut Frank Borman was philosophical: “Business without bankruptcy is like Christianity without Hell.”
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Yesterday’s Quiz: What is the origin of the phrase- No Strings Attached?

Answer: In the 18th Century when expensive cloths like silk were imported to Europe the merchant would mark a flaw in the weave by tying a small string at the bottom. Even today when a London tailor wants some yards of flawless cloth, he would ask for cloth “with no strings attached.”