• As starving comedians very early in their career, Richard “Cheech” Marin and Tommy Chong had to come up with creative ways to get food. Cheech used to write letters to the companies that marketed food he liked and tell them that he had found something gross in their food—even though he hadn’t. For example, he would write a famous soup company and tell them that he had found flies in their soup. The companies almost always responded by sending him cases of free food. Once, a company vice president even personally delivered three expensive steaks to him.
• Selma Diamond was one of the earliest women to make her living from writing comedy—she wrote for such comedians as Jimmy Durante, Milton Berle, and Jack Paar. For years, she lived in New York, but eventually she left to write comedy in Hollywood. After being gone for nine years and becoming a big success, she returned to New York and went into the candy store she used to frequent. She asked the owner, “Did you know where I’ve been?” He replied, “You been buyin’ your candy from the store across the street?”
• When he was growing up, Sam Levenson and his friends occasionally headed for Central Park to go hiking. While there, the kids got hungry, but fortunately their mothers always packed their lunches. Each time the kids went hiking, the “miracle of the sandwiches” took place: One of the children would say he was tired of the sandwiches his mother fixed for him, the other children would agree, so everybody would swap sandwiches. But miraculously, all the kids ended up with salami sandwiches.
• Lisa Kron performs a theatrical one-person show titled 101 Humiliating Stories. One of the stories is about her walking down the hall in a law office, stopping along the way and talking to everyone she met. Once she is down the hall, a female employee tells her, “Your skirt is tucked into your tights.” Ms. Kron says she felt like telling everyone in the law office, “You don’t get a butt like this eating Slim-Fast for lunch. You have to eat a real lunch to get a butt like this.”
• For a while, Joan Rivers told many, many fat jokes about Elizabeth Taylor—for example, “She puts mayonnaise on an aspirin” and “Her car has a bumper sticker that says, ‘My other car is a refrigerator.’” Ms. Taylor was a good sport and sent Ms. Rivers word that the fat jokes did not offend her—in fact, the fat jokes had inspired her to lose weight.
• One of Red Skelton’s most famous comedy routines demonstrated the different ways in which people dunk donuts. While doing this routine, Red ate as many as eight or nine donuts. When you consider that in vaudeville, a comic might do a routine five times a day, it’s easy to see why Red’s physician ordered him to stop doing the routine.
• When comedian Dick Gregory was in high school, he wanted to learn etiquette. So he took a high-school cooking course, where he learned not to eat all the meat, then turn the plate and eat all the potato, then turn the plate and eat all the greens.
• Comedian Eddie Cantor’s wife wanted him to eat his spinach, which he disliked, so she used to hide it under his mashed potatoes.
A banana is an elongated, edible fruit – botanically a berry – produced by several kinds of large herbaceous flowering plants in the genus Musa. In some countries, bananas used for cooking may be called "plantains", distinguishing them from dessert bananas. The fruit is variable in size, color, and firmness, but is usually elongated and curved, with soft flesh rich in starch covered with a rind, which may be green, yellow, red, purple, or brown when ripe. The fruits grow in clusters hanging from the top of the plant. Almost all modern edible seedless (parthenocarp) bananas come from two wild species – Musa acuminata and Musa balbisiana. The scientific names of most cultivated bananas are Musa acuminata, Musa balbisiana, and Musa × paradisiaca for the hybrid Musa acuminata × M. balbisiana, depending on their genomic constitution. The old scientific name for this hybrid, Musa sapientum, is no longer used.
Musa species are native to tropical Indomalaya and Australia, and are likely to have been first domesticated in Papua New Guinea. They are grown in 135 countries,[6] primarily for their fruit, and to a lesser extent to make fiber, banana wine, and banana beer and as ornamental plants. The world's largest producers of bananas in 2017 were India and China, which together accounted for approximately 38% of total production.
Source
Mark. was first, and correct, with:
A banana is a berry.
Dave responded:
A berry. And Banana plants are not trees either. So there! I see that China has recently banned livestreaming videos of “erotic banana eating.” I did not know that.
Jacqueline replied:
Botanically speaking, bananas are berries.
Cal in Vermont wrote:
It is a berry. Huh. Go figure.
zorch said:
A banana is a berry
David of Moon Valley answered:
really?!
well my morning wikipal says that thang be a berry…..well who knew (other than you)? he asked rhetorically…...
John I from Hawai`i says,
A Berry.
Deborah, the Master Gardener replied:
A banana is botanically a berry. That’s something even this Master Gardener didn’t know.
I have 3 gifts left to buy and all of them to wrap. I’ll be busy this week.
Jim from CA, retired to ID, responded:
Bananas are berries
Billy in Cypress wrote:
A berry
Mac Mac said:
Berry
Joe answered:
A banana is a berry. I don't know why, I don't make the rules. I used to eat a lot of bananas but now I can't stand them. Had too many I guess.
mj took the day off.
Kevin K. in Washington DC took the day off.
Michelle in AZ took the day off.
Dave in Tucson took the day off.
Leo in Boise took the day off.
Roy, Still Bright Blue, Still in Gohmertstan, TX took the day off.
Ed K took the day off.
Daniel in The City took the day off.
DJ Useo took the day off.
Barbara, of Peppy Tech fame took the day off.
Jon L took the day off.
Rosemary in Columbus took the day off.
Doug in Albuquerque, New Mexico, took the day off.
Stephen F 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.
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Gene took the day off.
Tony K. took the day off.
Noel S. took the day off.
James of Alhambra took the day off.
BttbBob has returned to semi-retired status.
~~~~~
Dear old dad reported 21 inches of snow in one dump this past week.
Tonight, Monday:
CBS opens the night with a RERUN'The Neighborhood', followed by a RERUN'Bob Hearts Abishola', then the FRESH'Kid Of The Year', followed by a RERUN'Bull'.
On a RERUNStephen Colbert (from 11/19/20) are LL Cool J, Dave Grohl, and Foo Fighters.
On a RERUNJames Corden, OBE, (from 12/1/20) are John Lithgow and Gary Barlow.
NBC begins the night with a RERUN'Dr. Seuss' The Grinch Musical!', followed by a RERUN'Weakest Link'.
On a RERUNJimmy Fallon (from 12/07/20) are Mariah Carey, Andrew Rannells, and Jose Feliciano.
On a RERUNSeth Meyers (from 11/5/20) are Chris Hayes and David Sedaris.
On a RERUNLilly Singh (from 2/24/20) are Lana Condor and Sofia Carson.
ABC starts the night with a FRESH'The Bachelorette', followed by a RERUN'CMA Country Christmas'.
On a RERUNJimmy Kimmel (from 12/2/20) are George Clooney, Amanda Seyfried, and Tones and I.
The CW offers 'Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer', followed by a RERUN'Greatest Holiday Commercials Countdown'.
Faux has a FRESH'NeXt', followed by a FRESH'Cosmos: Possible Worlds'.
MY recycles an old 'L&O: SVU', followed by another old 'L&O: SVU'.
AMC offers the movie 'Scrooged', followed by the movie 'National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation', then the movie 'National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation', again.
BBC -
[6:00AM - 11:00AM] STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE
[12:00PM - 4:00PM] STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION
[5:00PM - 11:00PM] LAW & ORDER
[12:00AM] UNDERWORLD: EVOLUTION
[2:00AM] UNDERWORLD: RISE OF THE LYCANS
[4:00AM] UNDERWORLD: BLOOD WARS (ALL TIMES ET)
Bravo has 'Below Deck', followed by a FRESH'Below Deck', then another FRESH'Below Deck', followed by a FRESH'Watch What Happens: Live'.
FX has the movie 'Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising', followed by the movie 'Skyscraper', then the movie 'Night School'.
History has 'Pawn Stars', another 'Pawn Stars', followed by a FRESH'Pawn Stars'.
IFC -
[6:00am - 9:30am] Parks And Recreation
[10:00am - 1:30pm] Community
[2:00pm - 5:30pm] Three's Company
[6:00pm - 12:30am] Two And A Half Men
[1:00am - 3:30am] Community
[4:00am - 5:30am] Parks And Recreation (ALL TIMES ET)
Sundance -
[6:00am - 3:30pm] hogan's heroes
[4:00pm] footloose
[6:30pm] the devil wears prada
[9:00pm] erin brockovich
[12:00am] pretty in pink
[2:00am] erin brockovich
[5:00am] love lust - Love Lust & The Bikini
[5:15am] gomer pyle, u.s.m.c.
[5:45am] gomer pyle, u.s.m.c. (ALL TIMES ET)
SyFy has the movie 'Robin Hood', followed by the movie 'Death Wish', then the movie 'Green Lantern'.
Stella Parton, whose sister Dolly helped fund COVID-19 vaccine research, lashed out at politicians and televangelists on Friday as she decried the rollout of inoculations.
“If a little Hillbilly singer like my big sister Dolly can invest in the vaccine then why the hell can’t some of you old moldy politicians pitch in a few million yourselves?” Stella Parton, 71, tweeted. “I noticed you started getting vaccinated right away while people are starving and dying.”
Dolly Parton donated $1 million to Vanderbilt University Medical Center as it worked to develop Moderna’s vaccine, which was approved for emergency use by the Federal Drug Administration on Friday.
Stella Parton tweeted that she had not heard of a single televangelist “donating one damn cent to the research fund but they sure can fleece the flock and try to cast out demons when they are possessed themselves!”
Members of the Los Angeles Film Critics Association (LAFCA) are gathering Sunday to vote for their annual year’s best in movies. The group will begin deliberating over winners in 14 categories, honoring a winner and a runner-up.
LAFCA named Steve McQueen’s Small Axe as Best Picture with Chloe Zhao’s Nomadland as the runner-up. The two films switched places with the Best Director category going to Zhao while McQueen was the runner up.
Last year, the Los Angeles critics tapped eventual Best Picture winner Parasite as its choice for Best Picture. That film’s director Bong Joon Ho won Best Director.
Other big winners included Promising Young Woman’s Carey Mulligan nabbing the Best Actress award while the late Chadwick Boseman earned Best Actor for his role in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.
The organization gave the New Generation Award to Radha Blank, the director, writer and star of The 40-Year-Old Version. Meanwhile, LAFCA rewarded Career Achievement Awards to Hou Hsiao-Hsien and Harry Belafonte, with 106-year-old Norman Lloyd receiving the inaugural Legacy Award.
Eddie Izzard is getting support on social media after publicly asking to be identified with “she” and “her” pronouns for the first time. The British stand-up comedian — who has also acted in films including Valkyrie, Ocean’s Twelve and Ocean’s Thirteen as well as starring in the former FX show The Riches — shared the decision during an appearance on the Sky Arts series Portrait Artist of the Year this week, the British Comedy Guide reports.
"I try to do things that I think are interesting,” the 58-year-old said during the show, in which portrait artists were tasked with capturing her likeness. “This is the first program I've asked if I can be 'she' and 'her' — this is a little transition period."
Izzard added that making the announcement “feel great” because “people assume that ... they just know me from before, but I'm gender-fluid. I just want to be based in girl mode from now on."
Izzard has long worn makeup and dresses, both on-stage and off, once quipping, “They’re not women’s clothes. They’re my clothes. I bought them.”
The star and avid marathoner has also been candid about gender identity. During a marathon challenge for charity in 2016, Izzard stopped to get a manicure, explaining, “Being a transgender guy, I do like my nails and they've been knocked about a bit so I'm getting my nails re-done.
The superhero sequel “Wonder Woman 1984” has earned an estimated $38.5 million in ticket sales from international theaters, Warner Bros. said Sunday. The film starring Gal Gadot started its rollout abroad last week, opening in 32 markets including China and playing on upwards of 30,000 screens. The studio said admissions totaled over 6 million and that the largely positive reviews bode well for its future.
Most of the earnings came from Chinese theaters, where it earned an estimated $18.8 million. It wasn’t enough to take first place in the country, however — that honor went to a local release.
“ Wonder Woman 1984 ” won’t open in U.S. theaters until Christmas Day, when it will also debut on HBO Max. The pandemic has forced studios like Warner Bros. to embrace unconventional release plans to get films out to audiences.
Originally, “Wonder Woman 1984” was supposed to open in theaters worldwide this summer, but its release date kept getting pushed back. The first film made over $821 million worldwide in 2017 and absent the pandemic, the hope was that the sequel, which cost around $200 million to make, would even surpass that total.
Warner Bros. has tried a few different strategies with its films this year, including releasing “Tenet” in theaters and sending “The Witches” straight to HBO Max. Finally last month the studio decided to embrace a hybrid release for “Wonder Woman 1984.” “Tenet” opened internationally first as well, taking off with $53 million from 41 markets in late August.
Over the weekend, Fox "News" aired a segment that debunked some of the election fraud claims made by its own hosts and anchors.
The network put together a news package that ran across various Fox News and Fox Business Network shows, starting with Lou Dobbs' show on Friday night. Fox created the segment in response to a legal threat from election software company Smartmatic.
On December 10, Smartmatic hit Fox with a 20-page demand letter obtained by Business Insider asking for "a full and complete retraction of all false and defamatory statements and reports" about the 2020 election.
Fox News engaged in "a concerted disinformation campaign against Smartmatic" by "continually and repeatedly published demonstrably false information and defamatory statements," said the letter, which was addressed to Fox News executive vice president and general counsel Lily Fu Claffee.
In the segment's original airing Friday night on his primetime evening show, Dobbs introduced the package by telling viewers that "there are lots of opinions about the integrity of the election." He then brought on Edward Perez, who works with the Open Source Election Technology Institute, a nonprofit dedicated to evaluating election technology.
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro criticized the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in a bizarre rant, On Thursday.
He suggested that the COVID-19 vaccine could result in people turning into crocodiles, women growing beards, and men speaking with effeminate voices, according to AFP.
Bolsonaro said: "In the Pfizer contract, it's very clear. 'We're not responsible for any side effects.' If you turn into a crocodile, that's your problem."
He continued: "If you become superhuman, if a woman starts to grow a beard or if a man starts to speak with an effeminate voice, they [Pfizer] won't have anything to do with it," he said.
He told AFP: "Some people say I'm giving a bad example. But to the imbeciles, to the idiots that say this, I tell them I've already caught the virus, I have the antibodies, so why get vaccinated?"
A team of researchers has come closer to uncovering the mystery behind a noble Roman woman who lived in the 4th century AD and was buried in a stone sarcophagus under a market in London, England.
The woman was first discovered among rows of graves in March 1999 under London's Spitalfields market, which was being excavated at the time.
Her coffin, decorated with scallop shells, indicated at the time that she was someone of great wealth and high status. The extent of her riches has only now been revealed by the team of researchers from the Museum of London Archaeology.
It is still unclear who her husband was, although she is thought to have been the wife of one of the Roman senators, who ruled between 350AD and 410AD.
Researchers say the woman was wrapped in the highest-quality silk from China, interwoven with fine gold thread made of 97 percent pure gold.
Vikings used Britain's earliest silk to protect their riches, scientists have found, as they say the wrappings are "treasures in their own right".
National Museums Scotland (NMS) will carry out the three-year project, entitled "Unwrapping the Galloway Hoard", in partnership with the University of Glasgow to examine the objects in detail.
The 10th-century treasure trove, which was found by a metal detectorist in a field in Dumfries and Galloway in 2014 and acquired by NMS in 2017, will go on display in an exhibition next year.
The research will involve precise dating of the items and, it is hoped, identification of their places of origin, which are thought to range from Ireland to the Byzantine empire and perhaps beyond.
Susanna Harris, lecturer in archaeology at the University of Glasgow and co-investigator on the project, said as well as the silver familiar with most Viking-age hoards and the much rarer gold, the Galloway collection also features an "unprecedented array" of other materials such as bronze, glass and rock crystal.
The pandemic may claim another iconic Hollywood restaurant. Miceli’s, which boasts it’s the oldest Italian restaurant and pizzeria in Hollywood, has set up a GoFundMe to keep its doors open.
Since opening in 1949, the restaurant (which also has a North Hollywood location) is known for its singing waiters and piano bar. Lucille Ball allegedly learned to toss a pizza for one of her episodes at Miceli’s, and generations of families have celebrated special occasions at both locations.
Paige Miceli, a third generation family member, set up a GoFundMe with a goal of $75,000.
“Nearly 72 years ago my grandfather, Carmen Miceli, opened the doors to the first Miceli’s Restaurant in the heart of old Hollywood. He probably didn’t think then that one day it would be known as ‘The Oldest Italian Restaurant in Hollywood’, but I know he’d be proud that over seven decades and three generations, our family owned and operated restaurant has survived to be exactly that. But now, we need your help to keep this true.”
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wrote:
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
