• While studying theater at UCLA, Carol Burnett took a course in acting, where she prepared to recite a speech in front of her class. Unfortunately, she didn’t recite it very well. For one thing, she didn’t bother to read the rest of the play to find out the context of the speech. In addition, she spoke the speech in a low monotone while pantomiming a waitress wiping a table. Her classmates didn’t understand the speech and thought that she was pantomiming ironing a shirt. Carol’s grade? D minus. Fortunately, a short time afterward, she was given some funny words to say. Her classmates laughed, Carol stuck to funny roles, and she earned an A-minus in the course.
• On The Dick Van Dyke Show, Dick’s younger brother, Jerry, made a few memorable appearances as Stacie Petrie. One pair of episodes about Stacie’s sleepwalking had their genesis in real life. Dick Van Dyke says about Jerry, “As a kid, he was a somnambulist—the world’s champion sleepwalker. He could get up, walk, and talk to you, and you’d never know he was asleep.” After Jerry was cast for his guest appearance, series producer Carl Reiner asked Dick if his younger brother could act. Dick said yes. When Mr. Reiner asked him how he knew Jerry could act, Dick replied, “Because if he can’t, I’ll kill him.”
• Not everyone wants to act. During the 1970s and 1980s, a wild and crazy comedian named Ron Sweed, aka the Ghoul, hosted several mostly bad movies on a television program airing in Cleveland, Ohio. Frequently, in between segments of the movie he was showing, he did short episodes of “Spencer and Mongolia,” a parody of a sitcom. Several women played Mongolia over the years—one woman quit because she regarded filming the episodes as a waste of her lunch hour.
Ad-libs
• Jackie Gleason’s TV series The Honeymooners was shown live, and mistakes did happen. In one episode, Mr. Gleason, famous for the character Ralph Kramden, missed his entrance. Art Carney, who played sewer worker Ed Norton, simply went to the Kramdens’ icebox, took out an orange, and began peeling it until Ralph Kramden arrived. Whenever you see Jackie Gleason patting his stomach on the show, it’s a sign to the cast that they’re in trouble, and somebody better think of something to say or do to get them out of the jam. Audrey Meadows, in her character of Alice, Ralph’s wife, once snarled, “If you get any bigger, Gasbag, you’ll float away.” The line was an ad-lib, rendered necessary by circumstances.
• Henry Morgan was hired to do a radio program in Canada consisting of ad-libs. However, very quickly, the producer of the show complained that Mr. Morgan was cheating him because the show had no structure—no beginning, middle, or end. So on the next show, Mr. Morgan paused to point out to the audience the beginning of the show, then later he paused to point out the middle of the show, then finally he told the audience, “This is the end—I quit.”
• Much of Jack Benny’s humor came from his writers, but at least once he got off a funny ad-lib. During a radio show with Fred Allen—who was funny with or without writers—Mr. Allen kept peppering Mr. Benny with comic ad-lib insults. Finally, Mr. Benny protested, “You wouldn’t say those things if my writers were here!”
• Vaudeville comedian Ted Healy once came on stage just after a bear act left. The smallest bear left a dropping as it exited, and the amused audience members called for the return of the bear act. Mr. Healy looked at the dropping, then he told the audience, “If that’s the kind of crap you want, I’ll do it myself.” The audience laughed.
• British stand-up comedian Marti Caine once performed her act in front of a group of drunken rugby players immediately after some strippers had performed. A rugby player saw that Ms. Caine was not taking off her clothes, so he yelled, “We want tits!” Ms. Caine replied, “You’d look bright with tits.”
The willow ptarmigan (Lagopus lagopus) is a bird in the grouse subfamily Tetraoninae of the pheasant family Phasianidae. It is also known as the willow grouse and in Ireland and Britain, where the subspecies L. l. scotica was previously considered to be a separate species, as the red grouse. It is a sedentary species, breeding in birch and other forests and moorlands in northern Europe, the tundra of Scandinavia, Siberia, Alaska and Canada, in particular in the provinces of Newfoundland and Labrador and Quebec. It is the state bird of Alaska. In the summer the birds are largely brown, with dappled plumage, but in the winter they are white with some black feathers in their tails (British populations do not adopt a winter plumage). The species has remained little changed from the bird that roamed the tundra during the Pleistocene. Nesting takes place in the spring when clutches of four to ten eggs are laid in a scrape on the ground. The chicks are precocial and soon leave the nest. While they are young, both parents play a part in caring for them. The chicks eat insects and young plant growth while the adults are completely herbivorous, eating leaves, flowers, buds, seeds and berries during the summer and largely subsisting on the buds and twigs of willow and other dwarf shrubs and trees during the winter.
The willow ptarmigan was adopted as the state bird of Alaska in 1955.
Source
Randall was first, and correct, with:
Alaska
Mark. said:
Alaska.
Alan J answered:
Alaska.
Dave wrote:
Alaska. These birds are mostly ground dwelling but can fly if alarmed. They live only in the far north of North America, Europe, UK, and Asia.
Photos: Winter and Summer feathers.
zorch replied:
Alaska, which wasn’t a state in 1955.
Deborah, the Master Gardener responded:
The willow ptarmigan is the state bird of Alaska. Evidently it likes cold, snowy places.
Red skies at sunrise and now overcast. Could we be in for some wet stuff? I sure hope so.
Jim from CA, retired to ID, responded:
Alaska on February 4, 1955, four years before Alaska was admitted to the Union.
Billy in Cypress replied:
Alaska, but it did not become a state until 1959.
Rosemary in Columbus said:
Alaska
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~~~~~
Info: “For much of their career, the Norwegian indie pop ensemble the Loch Ness Mouse made the kind of jangly, easygoing, Beach Boys-influenced indie pop that brought to mind California Snow Story, Sambassadeur, and Nobody & the Mystic Chords of Memory.”
CBS begins the night with the chestnut 'Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer', followed by 'Frosty The Snowman', then 'Frosty Returns', followed by '48 Hours'.
NBC opens the night on the East Coast with a RERUN'Ellen's Game Of Games', followed by a RERUN'Weakest Link', then an old 'SNL' (from 12/12/15) with Chris Hemsworth hosting, music by Chance The Rapper.
NBC opens the night early on the left coast with a RERUN'Ellens' Game Of Games', followed by a LIVE'SNL' with Timothee Chalamet hosting, music by Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band, then an old 'SNL' (from 12/12/15) with Chris Hemsworth hosting, music by Chance The Rapper.
'SNL' is FRESH with Timothee Chalamet hosting, music by Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band.
ABC fills the night with LIVE'College Football', then pads the left coast with local crap.
The CW offers some old 'Friends', and some old '2½ Men'.
Faux fills the night with LIVE'2020 MLS Cup', then pads the left coast with local crap.
MY recycles an old 'Weather Gone Viral', followed by an old 'Storm Of Suspicion'.
A&E has the movie 'Back To The Future', followed by the movie 'Back To The Future Part II'.
AMC offers the movie 'Elf', followed by the movie 'Elf', again.
BBC -
[6:00AM] EARTH'S GREAT SEASONS - SPRING (EXTENDED)
[7:00AM] EARTH'S GREAT SEASONS - SUMMER (EXTENDED)
[8:00AM] EARTH'S GREAT SEASONS - AUTUMN (EXTENDED)
[9:00AM] EARTH'S GREAT SEASONS - WINTER (EXTENDED)
[10:00AM] PLANET EARTH: LIFE - PLANTS
[11:00AM] PLANET EARTH: LIFE - CHALLENGES OF LIFE
[12:00PM] PLANET EARTH: LIFE - REPTILES AND AMPHIBIANS
[1:00PM] PLANET EARTH: LIFE - MAMMALS
[2:00PM] PLANET EARTH: LIFE - FISH
[3:00PM] PLANET EARTH: LIFE - BIRDS
[4:00PM] PLANET EARTH: LIFE - INSECTS
[5:00PM] PLANET EARTH: LIFE - HUNTERS AND HUNTED
[6:00PM] PLANET EARTH: LIFE - CREATURES OF THE DEEP
[7:00PM] PLANET EARTH: LIFE - PRIMATES
[8:00PM] BABY CHIMP RESCUE - BREAKING POINT EXTENDED
[9:15PM] PLANET EARTH: LIFE - CHALLENGES OF LIFE
[10:15PM] PLANET EARTH: LIFE - REPTILES AND AMPHIBIANS
[11:15PM] PLANET EARTH: LIFE - MAMMALS
[12:15AM] PLANET EARTH: LIFE - FISH
[1:15AM] BABY CHIMP RESCUE - BREAKING POINT EXTENDED
[2:30AM] PLANET EARTH: LIFE - BIRDS
[3:30AM] PLANET EARTH: LIFE - INSECTS
[4:30AM] PLANET EARTH: LIFE - HUNTERS AND HUNTED
[5:30AM] HIDDEN HABITATS - AMAZON (ALL TIMES ET)
Bravo has the movie 'Diary Of A Mad Black Woman', followed by the movie 'Last Holiday', then the movie 'Last Holiday', again.
Comedy Central has the movie 'Step Brothers', followed by the movie 'Vacation'.
FX has the movie 'The Secret Life Of Pets', followed by the movie 'Dr. Seuss' The Grinch'.
History has 'History's Greatest Mysteries', followed by a FRESH'History's Greatest Mysteries'.
IFC -
[6:00am] Saved By The Bell: The College Years
[6:30am - 8:00am] Saved By The Bell: Hawaiian Style
[8:30am - 11:00am] Saved By The Bell
[11:30am - 1:00pm] Community
[1:30pm] Inglourious Basterds
[5:00pm] Unforgiven
[8:00pm] Pale Rider
[10:35pm] The Outlaw Josey Wales
[1:55am] Unforgiven
[5:00am] Saved By The Bell
[5:30am] Saved By The Bell (ALL TIMES ET)
Sundance -
[6:00am - 10:30am] the andy griffith show
[11:00am - 6:00pm] hogan's heroes
[6:30pm] the rundown
[9:00pm] the fugitive
[12:00am] the fugitive
[3:00am] the rundown
[5:30am] monk - Mr. Monk And The Red Herring (ALL TIMES ET)
SyFy has the movie 'Avengers: Age Of Ultron', followed by the movie 'Toys Of Terror'.
Billboard’s annual Women in Music event on Thursday night virtually assembled some of the music industry’s 2020 powerhouses for a celebration hosted by the illustrious Teyana Taylor.
“Tonight’s honorees helped us look through the darkness and find the light. Their music inspired our Zoom dance parties, they used their platforms to fight a global pandemic, to fight for equality and encourage voters to make their voices heard,” Taylor said during her opening speech. “While the world was in lockdown, these women were standing up, doing what women do best: getting to the work and getting to the money.”
The livestream show included performances by Chloe x Halle, Dua Lipa, and Dolly Parton, who were honored throughout the night. It also featured several A-list presenters including Beyoncé, Lilly Singh, Miley Cyrus, Maluma, and Senator Bernie Sanders.
But the focal point of the evening was none other than Cardi B, who was honored as Billboard’s Woman of the Year not only for her music, but her political activism during the 2020 election process. The top honor was presented to the rapstress by Tamika Palmer, mother of the late Breonna Taylor.
"One of Breonna's most outspoken advocates over the past nine months has been Cardi B," Palmer said in a pre-recorded statement. "From the beginning, Cardi has used her platform to spread the truth about what happened to Breonna and to reaffirm that Black women's lives matter."
Donald Trump (R-Arschloch) has been branded "loser of the year" by one of Europe's biggest news magazines, as President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris were named Time Magazine's "Person[s] of the Year."
Der Spiegel, one of Germany's most widely read German-language news websites, published a long article in German about the president under the headline "Der Verlierer des Jahres," which translates as "The Loser of the Year."
The article, published on Thursday, criticised the president for refusing to concede the election to Biden and described him as "a man who ... was never concerned with the common good, but always with one thing - himself."
"Nothing is normal under Trump," the article, written by the publication's Washington bureau chief and a Berlin-based correspondent, said.
"He refuses to admit defeat. Instead, he speaks of massive electoral fraud, although there is no evidence for it. The whole thing is not surprising. Trump's presidency ends as it began. Without decency and without dignity."
Harrison Ford will return to the Indiana Jones film franchise for one last adventure.
On Thursday (10 December), Disney confirmed that the 78-year-old actor would have a fifth outing as the adventurer before giving up the role for good.
The new film will be directed by Logan’s James Mangold and will be released in June 2022.
The untitled film will be the first not to be directed by Steven Spielberg, with the filmmaker remaining on the project as a “hands-on producer”.
Spielberg, who worked on the films up until 2008’s Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, announced that he was stepping down from the franchise earlier this year in order to give the character to “a new generation to bring their perspective to the story”.
Just as A Charlie Brown Christmas has been a seasonal pop culture gift for 55 years and counting, it’s hard to imagine a Thanksgiving weekend without at least one helping of A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving. In recent years, though, the 1973 animated special — written by Peanuts creator, Charles Schulz — has been accompanied by a side of controversy. At issue is a sequence from the half-hour cartoon where Charlie Brown and his friends sit down for their version of Thanksgiving dinner, featuring toast, popcorn and jelly beans in place of turkey, mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce.
During the meal, though, one friend seems left out in the cold: Franklin, the only main Black character in Peanuts, is seated in a beach chair by himself on one side of the table. Even though he’s part of the group, he’s still distinctly separate from them. It’s an image that increasingly bothers modern-day viewers of A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, several of whom took to Twitter over the holiday to express their complicated feelings about the special, and Franklin’s legacy.
Speaking with Yahoo Entertainment, Schulz’s widow, Jean Schulz, addresses the debate by noting that while her husband wrote A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, he wasn’t involved in the animation process. That fell to director Bill Melendez, who first collaborated with Schulz on A Charlie Brown Christmas in 1965. The duo continued to work together on animated Peanuts specials for decades, alongside producer Lee Mendelson. (Schulz died on Feb. 12, 2000, one day before his final Peanuts strip appeared in newspapers.)
“The scene would not have had nothing to do with Sparky, because it was purely the animators and the directors working on it,” Jean explains. (“Sparky” was Schulz’s childhood nickname.) “The director parcels out the scenes to the animators, and the animators who drew that scene aren’t alive anymore or we don’t know how to find them. The [controversy] first popped up a couple of years ago. I’ve probably watched the special a dozen times, and I hadn’t noticed it. But I wouldn’t notice it: It’s to be noticed now.”
Even if the animators didn’t intend offense by isolating Franklin, the special’s critics feel that it reflects an insular point of view about inclusion. “Having [Franklin] on this long side by himself, you could interpret it that no one wanted to sit next to him,” Darnell Hunt, dean of social sciences and professor of sociology and African American studies at UCLA, recently told Yahoo Life. “Today this would not be acceptable. It really does speak to the need for more inclusive creators and storytellers behind the scenes who produce these images.”
It took 51 years and a team of experts from three countries to crack the code to a cipher left by the still unidentified Zodiac Killer, who haunted northern California communities in the 1960s and 70s. But, on Friday, the code-breaker David Oranchak revealed for the first time, the ominous message sent by the murderer.
“I hope you are having lots of fun in trying to catch me,” the message, sent to the San Francisco Chronicle in November 1969 in a series of symbols, reads. “I am not afraid of the gas chamber because it will send me to paradise all the sooner because I now have enough slaves to work for me.”
The FBI confirmed that the news of the cracked code is the real deal, but said it does little to help investigators in the decades-long search for the serial killer.
This is the second Zodiac cipher that has been cracked. The first was solved quickly by a local couple. Much like the code exposed today, the first served only to terrify and provoke. It revealed little about who the killer was – only the heinous reason behind the spree: “I like killing” the code read, “because it is so much fun.”
The killer, believed to be a white man, began contacting newspapers in 1969 and phoning the police, identifying himself only as “Zodiac”. He often sought publicity for his grisly crimes, threatening newspapers with additional murders if they refused to print his ciphers. There were four codes total, one in which the killer said his identity would be revealed. Though several theories have been floated through the years on Zodiac’s identity, he has evaded detection by authorities across five decades.
A Tennessee-based pharmaceutical company is recalling two drugs that got "mixed up" while being packaged in a factory.
AvKARE said on Wednesday its 100mg Sidenafil and 100mg Trazodone tablets were put in the same bottles due to a "third party" error.
Sidenafil is the main ingredient in Viagra, a medication used to treat erectile dysfunction, while Trazodone is used to treat depression.
Sidenafil may pose serious health risks to consumers with underlying medical issues and others who are not supposed to take it, AvKARE said in a statment.
Trazodone may result in adverse health consequences such as sedation, dizziness, constipation, and blurred vision, the company added.
We don't know whether it was a boy or a girl. But this ancient child, a Neanderthal, only made it to about two years of age.
This short life, lived about 41,000 years ago, was uncovered at a famous archaeological site in southwestern France, called La Ferrassie. The remains of several Neanderthals have been found there, including the most recent discovery, the child, known only as La Ferrassie 8.
When the ancient remains were first found – most at various stages of the early 20th century – archaeologists had assumed the skeletons represented intentional burials, with Neanderthals laying their departed kin to rest under the earth.
Nonetheless, in contemporary archaeology, doubts now swirl around the question of whether Neanderthals did indeed bury their dead like that, or whether this particular aspect of funerary rites is a uniquely Homo sapiens custom.
In part, the asking of these questions links back to the archaeological techniques and record-keeping used in the past, as the antiquated methods used by archaeologists and anthropologists from the early 20th century (and even earlier) mean we can't always be entirely confident in their findings.
When faced with a challenging mental task, some people would rather endure literal pain than use their brain power.
According to a new study, published Nov. 17 in the journal eLife, the prospect of performing a difficult mental task can be just as off-putting as the threat of a painful experience, like having a scalding hot object held on your skin. In the study, participants could either subject themselves to this uncomfortable, thermal pain or they could complete a memory task — the choice was up to them.
"So your first thought would be, why would you ever choose pain?" said study lead author Todd Vogel, a doctoral student in the Department of Psychology at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. "These cognitive activities … they suck. They're not fun. But they're harmless," in that they don't cause bodily harm or discomfort, Vogel said. You might assume that people would always choose the harmless option over the harmful one, but you'd be wrong.
In fact, only one out of 39 participants in the study opted to perform the memory task every time, rather than occasionally take the pain. For all the others, pain was the more appealing option at least some of the time.
"I think that was most surprising, that this seemed to be consistent across people," Vogel told Live Science.
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