• When Danny Thomas was an unknown entertainer with a wife and a daughter (Marlo), he felt pressured to take a job as a grocery clerk. So he went into a church and prayed to St. Jude (the patron saint of lost causes) for a sign about what he should do. Within a week, he was a hit comedy sensation in Chicago. To show his gratitude, he raised money to found the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital to help children with catastrophic illnesses such as leukemia.
• Myron Cohen used to be a silk salesman who made his customers laugh, but he quit his job to become a stand-up comedian. His former boss, A.E. Wullschleger, attended one of his early appearances, and he seemed to enjoy it and laughed a lot. Afterward, Mr. Cohen asked what he thought of his act. Mr. Wullschleger looked serious for a moment, then joked, “Remember, Myron, there’s always a place in my organization for a good silk salesman.”
• During World War II, country comedian Archie Campbell served as an enlisted man in the United States Navy under Lieutenant Sam Bailey. Both men were avid golfers, and occasionally Lieutenant Bailey would come into the enlisted men’s barracks and say, “All right, men. I’m looking for a volunteer for special duty. You over there, Campbell, step out here.” The “special duty” was playing a round of golf.
• Tim Conway is a talented comedian who is very popular in movie roles and re-runs of McHale’s Navy and The Carol Burnett Show; unfortunately, many of his own TV series have flopped. Rango and The Tim Conway Comedy Hour each lasted only 13 weeks and other shows starring Mr. Conway lasted for only half of one season. After this series of flops, Mr. Conway got new license plates for his car: “13 WKS.”
• Before becoming an entertainer, Whoopi Goldberg worked in a mortuary, where she dressed the hair of corpses. To do this particular job, she pretended that the corpses were just very large dolls. Later, she joked that dressing the hair of the corpses was better than dressing the hair of the living because the corpses never complained about how Ms. Goldberg made them look.
• African-American entertainer George Kirby broke into show business by way of bartending. At DeLisa’s in Chicago, he used to entertain customers with jokes and impressions. Mike DeLisa noticed that the customers always sat at the end of the bar where Mr. Kirby was working, so he told Mr. Kirby to put together seven minutes of material for the stage. Mr. Kirby was so successful that he appeared on stage at DeLisa’s for the next five years.
• Lou Costello preferred playing cards to making movies. Often, he would sit in his dressing room playing cards instead of coming out to perform his scenes. Sometimes, assistant director Howard Christie, who had played football at the University of California, would pick up Mr. Costello and carry him from the card game to the movie set.
• While working in a law office, performance artist Lisa Kron wore socks instead of pantyhose, a dress code violation which made the other employees feel uneasy. However, Ms. Kron was able to disregard the dress code by telling her boss, “If I have to wear pantyhose to work every day, my yeast infection will be on your head.”
• Eddie Cantor was a frenetic comedian in the Ziegfeld Follies for several years, and he was known for his large “banjo” eyes, generosity to charities, and energy on stage. One of his jokes was to run onto stage, bounce around, and tell the audience, “I’ve just bought a secondhand watch, and this is the only way I can keep it running.”
• Groucho Marx was in a fancy department store when he saw a snobbish rich woman mistreating a saleslady and carrying a dog, so Groucho walked up to the rich woman and asked, “How much for the dog, miss?” She haughtily informed him that the dog was not for sale. “I’m sorry,” Groucho replied, “I thought you were a salesgirl.”
The official state bird of Minnesota is also the provincial bird of Ontario, and it appears on both Canadian currency and the Minnesota State Quarter. What is the name of this common bird?
What is the name of this rubber-faced comic actress, probably best known for holding her own opposite Sid Caesar on "Your Show Of Shows", and who also won an Emmy at 80 for an episode of "Moonlighting"?
Imogene Coca (born Emogeane Coca; November 18, 1908 – June 2, 2001) was an American comic actress best known for her role opposite Sid Caesar on Your Show of Shows. Starting out in vaudeville as a child acrobat, she studied ballet and wished to have a serious career in music and dance, graduating to decades of stage musical revues, cabaret and summer stock. In her 40s, she began a celebrated career as a comedian on television, starring in six series and guest starring on successful television programs from the 1940s to the 1990s.
She was nominated for five Emmy Awards for Your Show of Shows, winning Best Actress in 1951 and singled out for a Peabody Award for excellence in broadcasting in 1953. Coca was also nominated for a Tony Award in 1978 for On the Twentieth Century and received a sixth Emmy nomination at the age of 80 for an episode of Moonlighting.
She possessed a rubbery face capable of the broadest expressions — Life magazine compared her to Beatrice Lillie and Charlie Chaplin and described her characterizations as taking "people or situations suspended in their own precarious balance between dignity and absurdity, and push(ing) them over the cliff with one single, pointed gesture". The magazine noted a "particularly high-brow critic" as observing, "The trouble with most comedians who try to do satire is that they are essentially brash, noisy and indelicate people who have to use a sledge hammer to smash a butterfly. Miss Coca, on the other hand, is the timid woman who, when aroused, can beat a tiger to death with a feather." Aside from vaudeville, cabaret, film, theater and television, she voiced children's cartoons and was even featured in the 1984 MTV music video "Bag Lady" by the band EBN-OZN, ultimately working well into her 80s.
Source
Billy in Cypress was first, and correct, with:
Imogene Coca
COMMENT: #45 got four more people killed on Wednesday plus those who have died from COVID19 because that is what he chooses to do. I do not want him making any more choices as POTUS!
Mark. said:
Imogene Coca.
Alan J answered:
Imogene Coca.
mj wrote:
She's one of the first performers
I remember watching. Imogene Coca.
Mac Mac replied:
Imogene Coca
Stephen F responded:
Imogene Coca
Randall wrote:
Imogene Coca
Cal in Vermont said:
Imogene Coca, one of the constellation of stars in early TV.
zorch answered:
Imogene Coca.
Jim from CA, retired to ID, replied:
Imogene Coca
Dave responded:
Imogene Coca. This one I knew, although Your Show of Shows was before my time. She was often featured the various variety and talk shows of the ‘60s and ‘70s.
John I from Hawai`i says,
Imogene Coca
David of Moon Valley wrote:
i remember her as....
…Imogene Coca…but it is Early and i could be wrong, too, and i’m still trying to process the shit that went down yesterday and how fucking congress decided to adjourn today before impeaching that god-damned, viper-tongued waste of human skin one more time…..fuck………….
Deborah, the Master Gardener said:
That’s Imogene Coca, who now reminds me of Carol Burnett’s and Allsion Janney’s sister. I remember her name and seeing her on tv, obviously, but I can’t tell you a single sketch she did. Selective memory, maybe?
Yay, Georgia, and holy shit, D.C.! We are living in a bizarre time.
Dave in Tucson replied:
That's the lovely & talented Imogene Coco.
Daniel in The City responded:
Imogene Coca
Jacqueline said:
Imogene coca
DJ Useo wrote:
Imogene Coca was her name. I've often wished someone would find actual copies of "Your Show Of Shows".
Thanks for featuring another great Lady Comic.
Rosemary in Columbus answered:
Imogene Coca
Joe S replied:
I don't know if I'm spelling it right but it's Imogene Cocoa. Anyway that's how you say it.
Leo in Boise responded:
Imogene Coca
Roy, still Antifa, still in Tyler, TX took the day off.
Doug in Albuquerque, New Mexico, took the day off.
Kevin K. in Washington DC, took the day off.
Barbara, of Peppy Tech fame took the day off.
Michelle in AZ took the day off.
Jon L took the day off.
Bob from Mechanicsburg, Pa took the day off.
Ed K took the day off.
-pgw took the day off.
Kenn B took the day off.
Micki took the day off.
Angelo D took the day off.
Harry M. took the day off.
George M. took the day off.
Gary K took the day off.
Roy the (now retired) hoghead (aka 'hoghed') ( Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid. ~Frank Zappa ) took the day off.
Saskplanner took the day off.
Gateway Mike took the day off.
Steve in Wonderful Sacramento, CA, took the day off.
MarilynofTC took the day off.
Paul of Seattle took the day off.
Brian S. took the day off.
Gene took the day off.
Tony K. took the day off.
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James of Alhambra took the day off.
BttbBob has returned to semi-retired status.
~~~~~
The Bookends are:
Sharon Lee - Bass Vocals
Karen Lynn - Guitar Vocals
“Shimmering mod-inspired sunshine pop, melody driven and catchy with a hint of garage from 2 inseparable cousins obsessed with music their entire lives, Sharon moved away but now they're back at it under their lifelong moniker, The Bookends!”
Price: $1 (USD) for track; $11 (USD) for 12-track album
CBS begins the night with a FRESH'MacGyver', followed by a FRESH'Magnum PU', then a FRESH'Blue Bloods'.
Scheduled on a FRESHStephen Colbert are Mountain Goats and "The Colbert Questionnert", featuring George Clooney, Tom Hanks, and Meryl Streep.
On a RERUNJames Corden, OBE, (from 12/10/20) are Andrew Rannells and Megan Thee Stallion.
NBC starts the night with a RERUN'Weakest Link', followed by 'Dateline'.
Scheduled on a FRESHJimmy Fallon are Rob Lowe, Lil Nas X, and Mark Normand.
On a RERUNSeth Meyers (from 12/17/20) are Kristen Wiig and Carrie Underwood.
On a RERUNLilly Singh (from 11/14/19) are Jenny Slate and Kathryn Hahn.
ABC opens the night with a FRESH'Shark Tank', followed by '20/20'.
On a RERUNJimmy Kimmel (from 1/4/21) are Gwyneth Paltrow, Matt James, and Machine Gun Kelly.
The CW offers a FRESH'Whose Line Is It Anyway?', followed by a RERUN'Whose Line Is It Anyway?', then a FRESH'Penn & Teller: FU'.
Faux fills the night with a FRESH'WWE Friday Night SmackDown'.
MY recycles an old 'L&O: CI', followed by another old 'L&O: CI'.
A&E has 'The First 48', another 'The First 48', followed by a FRESH'Live Rescue'.
AMC offers the movie 'GI Jane', followed by the movie 'Unstoppable', then the movie 'Air Force One'.
BBC -
[6:00AM] MONTY PYTHON'S FLYING CIRCUS - MR. AND MRS. BRIAN NORRIS' FORD POPULAR
[6:30AM - 10:30AM] STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE
[11:30AM] STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION
[12:30PM] STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION
[1:30PM] THE WATCH - A NEAR VIMES EXPERIENCE; OOK
[3:30PM] THE PATRIOT
[7:00PM] THE TRANSPORTER
[9:00PM] TRANSPORTER 2
[11:00PM] THE GRAHAM NORTON SHOW-NEW YEAR'S EVE SHOW
[12:26AM] THE TRANSPORTER
[2:28AM] TRANSPORTER 2
[4:28AM] HIDDEN HABITATS - AUSTRALIA'S RED CENTRE
[4:59AM] PLANET EARTH: THE HUNT - LIVING WITH PREDATORS - CONSERVATION (ALL TIMES ET)
Bravo has a FRESH'Below Deck', followed by the movie 'Baby Mama'.
Comedy Central has an hour of old 'The Office', followed by 3 hours of 'Schitt's Creek'.
FX has the movie 'Deepwater Horizon', followed by the movie Skyscraper'.
History has 'The UnXplained', another 'The UnXplained', followed by a FRESH'The UnXplained', 'The Proof Is Out There', and another 'The Proof Is Out There'.
IFC -
[6:00am] Community
[6:30am] Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Return - Wizards Of The Lost Kingdom II
[8:30am] Pompeii
[11:00am] Cliffhanger
[1:30pm] The Hunt For Red October
[4:30pm] Inglourious Basterds
[8:00pm] Fury
[11:00pm] Inglourious Basterds
[2:30am] Fury
[5:30am] Saved By The Bell (ALL TIMES ET)
Sundance -
[6:00am - 12:30pm] the andy griffith show
[1:00pm - 1:00am] law & order
[2:00am] columbo
[3:45am] columbo
[5:30am] the andy griffith show (ALL TIMES ET)
SyFy has the movie 'Red 2', followed by the movie 'John Wick'.
Former first lady Michelle Obama tore into President Donald Trump's "violent" supporters on Thursday who stormed the US Capitol the previous day to try to stop the peaceful transfer of power.
"Like all of you, I watched as a gang - organized, violent, and mad they'd lost an election - laid siege to the United States Capitol," Obama said in a statement. "They set up gallows. They proudly waved the traitorous flag of the Confederacy through the halls. They desecrated the center of American government."
Obama went on to say the day was "a fulfillment of the wishes of an infantile and unpatriotic president who can't handle the truth of his own failures. And the wreckage lays at the feet of a party and media apparatus that gleefully cheered him on, knowing full well the possibility of consequences like these."
Moreover, Obama pointed out in her statement, "once authorities finally gained control of the situation, these rioters and gang members were led out of the building not in handcuffs, but free to carry on with their days."
"And for those who call others unpatriotic for simply taking a knee in silent protest, for those who wonder why we need to be reminded that Black Lives Matter at all, yesterday made it painfully clear that certain Americans are, in fact, allowed to denigrate the flag and symbols of our nation," she added. "They've just got to look the right way."
Rudolph Giuliani’s embarrassing interview in “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm” provided the comedy smash with its most meme-able, headline-grabbing moment.
But the former New York City mayor and personal attorney to one Donald J. Trump (R-Loser) wasn’t the only member of the 45th president’s circle of friends, family and advisors that team Borat targeted. At one point, the filmmakers thought about inducing the “My Pillow Guy” to sit down for a one-on-one with Tutar, the daughter of Borat who is played unforgettably by Maria Bakalova. Mike Lindell, the company’s founder, is a frequent advertiser on Fox News and an enthusiastic supporter of Trump.
“We had this crazy idea to do a socially distanced interview with Mike Lindell and Borat’s daughter, and since we couldn’t do it indoors, we’d do it in the edge of the woods or some kind of wasteland,” says Anthony Hines, the producer and co-writer of “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm.” “There would be a mattress there with a load of MyPillow products and Borat would find Mike Lindell at the edge of the woods in a bed with his daughter. The MyPillow guy would then have to explain what the hell was going on. That was just one harebrained alternative to the scene that ended up in the movie.”
Other possible targets included Donald Trump Jr. and even the big man himself.
Late-night TV show hosts expressed anger and frustration at the violence at the U.S. Capitol, offering somber monologues that pleaded for unity even as some aimed pointed barbs at those they held responsible for the mobs’ actions.
“It was a terrible day in the history of this country,” said Jimmy Kimmel on his ABC show Wednesday. Over on CBS, Stephen Colbert called it “a horrifying day that will go down in U.S. history, however much longer that is.”
“If my grandfather were alive today and saw what was happening in the country that he fought for, he’d be disgusted,” said Jimmy Fallon on NBC. “People walking around with the flag upside down thinking they’re patriotic. Today was not patriotism. Today was terrorism.”
James Corden, who grew up in England, used the perspective of an outsider to view the events, saying he always looked to the United States as a beacon of light and possibility.
Colbert’s 14-minute monologue was the most scathing, calling out Trump’s most outspoken GOP supporters in Congress and the Senate for what he alleged were years of sowing the seeds for violence.
The Mean Girls musical won’t be back when Broadway reopens, producers announced today. The musical, based on Tina Fey’s 2004 film, suspended production when Broadway went dark due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The musical, with a book by Fey, music by Jeff Richmond, lyrics by Nell Benjamin, and direction and choreography by Casey Nicholaw, opened on Broadway in 2018 and grossed $124 million by the time it close last March. Plans to adapt the musical for a new Paramount Pictures film version were previously announced.
“We remain excited to bring this musical to the big screen, relaunch the tour and prepare for a London production,” said Lorne Michael, who produced the musical with Stuart Thompson, Sonia Friedman, and Paramount Pictures. “I look forward to the day, hopefully soon, when theaters can open their doors again.”
The producers said the permanent closing was due to the ongoing Broadway shutdown. (The show had recouped its capitalization by early 2020.)
Earth is spinning unusually quickly – and last year saw the shortest day since people started counting.
In fact, 2020 saw the 28 shortest days since 1960, beating the previous shortest day in 2005, according to TimeandDate.com.
The rapid spinning of our planet could mean that scientists add a ‘negative leap second’ to the network of atomic clocks which count time on Earth, according to the Telegraph.
It would mean that one year would be a second shorter than others.
In 2016, scientists added a ‘leap second’ to keep our planet in sync – but this would be the first “negative leap second”.
Helen Viola Jackson’s 1936 marriage to James Bolin was unusual to say the least: He was 93 and in declining health, and she was a 17-year-old schoolgirl.
Bolin was also a Civil War veteran who fought for the Union in the border state of Missouri. Jackson was almost certainly the last remaining widow of a Civil War soldier when she died Dec. 16 at a nursing home in Marshfield, Missouri. She was 101.
Several Civil War heritage organizations have recognized Jackson’s quiet role in history, one that she hid for all but the final three years of her life, said Nicholas Inman, her pastor and longtime friend. Yet in those final years, Inman said, Jackson embraced the recognition that included a spot on the Missouri Walk of Fame and countless cards and letters from well-wishers.
Jackson grew up one of 10 children in the tiny southwestern Missouri town of Niangua, near Marshfield. Bolin, a widower who had served as a private in the 14th Missouri Cavalry during the Civil War seven decades earlier, lived nearby.
Jackson’s father volunteered his teenage daughter to stop by Bolin’s home each day to provide care and help with chores. To pay back her kindness, Bolin offered to marry Jackson, which would allow her to receive his soldier’s pension after his death, a compelling offer in the context of the Great Depression.
Physicists have identified a new state of matter, hidden inside the mysterious transformations that take place between liquid and solid states of glass.
The glass transition holds a lot of fascination for scientists, and the new state of matter – called 'liquid glass' – exhibits behaviour at the microscopic level that hasn't been seen before, marking it as separate from previously observed phenomena.
This new state seems to exist between a solid and a colloid (such as a gel): homogeneous mixtures with particles that are microscopic but still bigger than atoms and molecules, and easier to study. In this case tiny, tailor-made plastic ellipsoidal colloids were created and mixed together in a solvent.
When materials transform from liquids into solids, their molecules usually line up to form a crystalline pattern. Not so with glass, which is why scientists are so keen to analyse and deconstruct it: with glass (and glass-like materials), the molecules are locked or frozen in a disordered state.
In liquid glass, the scientists noticed the colloids were able to move, but couldn't rotate – they had more flexibility than the molecules in glass, but not enough to make them comparable to regular materials that have already been extensively studied.
Waddling, wriggling, ambling, digging, laying eggs. There’s no shortage of verbiage when it comes to describing monotremata—the taxonomic order made up of only two animals, the platypus and the echidna. Rattling off the numerous weird traits of these creatures is trope in news coverage—and it’s near impossible to avoid, since they are mammals that lay eggs and sweat milk, among other bizarre features.
But perhaps the easiest way to outline the monotremes’ awesome evolutionary success is to go right into their DNA. A team of 40 researchers from Australia, China, Japan, Denmark, and the United States did just that in a recent review of the monotremes’ genomes. Their findings are published in the journal Nature.
The first draft and analysis of the platypus genome sequence came back in 2008. The recent paper includes a high-quality update of that sequence and the first-ever echidna genome (for some reason, the echidna is always second fiddle to the platypus). Interestingly, monotremes lie halfway between oviparity and viviparity—referring to where embryos are developed, in eggs or in the parent body. This neither-here-nor-thereness is reflected in the animals’ protein dependencies.
“During their short in egg incubation, they have kept one of the three major egg proteins that is used to make the yolk in chickens,” said Marilyn Renfree, a zoologist at the University of Melbourne and co-author of the study, in a press release, “but after hatching both platypus and echidna have a complex milk like other mammals to support their young during their long lactation.”
“Indeed, the platypus belongs to the Mammalia class. But genetically, it is a mixture of mammals, birds and reptiles,” said Guojie Zhang, a biologist at the University of Copenhagen and a co-author of the recent study, in a press release. “It has preserved many of its ancestors’ original features—which probably contribute to its success in adapting to the environment they live in.”
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