from Bruce
Anecdotes
Talk Shows
• An appearance on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson could lead to fame and fortune and great success, and so of course many guests were understandably nervous before their first appearance on the TV program. The first time that movie critics Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel appeared on The Tonight Show , one of Johnny’s writers stopped by their dressing room to say that Johnny would be asking them which current movies they liked. It’s a good thing that the writer stopped by, for Mr. Ebert and Mr. Siskel were so nervous that they couldn’t think of the titles of any current movies they liked, although several were playing that they had given thumbs-up to. With their minds completely blank, they brainstormed to come up with the title of a good movie. The only one they could think of was Gone With the Wind , so Mr. Siskel ended up calling their office back in Chicago and asking an assistant to tell them the titles of some movies they liked. (Of course, when they actually went on the show, Mr. Carson, always a master interviewer, put them at ease and everything went very smoothly.)
• Before Mike Douglas’ talk show was nationally syndicated, it was a locally produced show in Cleveland, Ohio. Once, Mr. Douglas decided to bring in a new, very talented singer named Barbra Streisand to appear on his show for a week. Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to pay her enough money to live on. Therefore, he found her a singing job for a week in Cleveland, and she was able to make enough money to afford to appear on his talk show.
• Comedian George Carlin once appeared on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson and did an entire routine about the Vietnam War and other socially relevant issues. When he sat down, Mr. Carson said, “Wow! Pretty serious stuff.” Mr. Carlin then explained that he could have spoken about innocuous stuff such as puppies and kittens, but since 5 million people were watching him, he had decided to say something important.
• TV’s Mister Rogers was Fred Rogers, who spoke in real life in the same slow way that he talked on the TV series. Once, Mister Rogers appeared on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, and Mr. Carson was so surprised that Mister Rogers spoke that way in real life that he found it difficult to keep from laughing. Mister Rogers told him, “You want to laugh, don’t you? It’s OK.” And Johnny laughed.
Telephones
• One of the most famous gimmicks in the 1960s TV series Get Smart is the shoe phone worn by Control agent Maxwell Smart. Years after Get Smart went off the air, Don Adams, the actor who played Maxwell Smart, would sometimes stop at a red light, and someone in the car next to his would roll down a window, hand him a shoe, and say, “It’s for you.”
• As the wild-and-crazy character known as The Ghoul, Ron Sweed used to host mostly bad horror movies on a television station in Cleveland, Ohio. The show’s set included a telephone. Whenever The Ghoul had an incoming call, viewers at home heard the telephone emit a loud knock.
Tobacco
• When TV was just becoming popular, cigarette companies sometimes sponsored shows and censored them. For example, when Camel, a cigarette brand, was the sponsor of a news program, it would not allow any “No Smoking” signs to be seen in the program’s news footage, and it would not allow anyone to be seen smoking a cigar — with the exception of Winston Churchill, the Prime Minister of Great Britain.
• W.C. Fields once was on a radio program sponsored by Lucky Strike cigarettes when he told a series of very funny stories about his nephew, Chester. The sponsors were not amused when they realized that Chester’s full name — Chester Fields — was the name of a rival cigarette.
Voices
• Ventriloquist Edgar Bergen and his partner, Charlie McCarthy (sometimes called a dummy, especially by W.C. Fields), wanted to be guests on the radio show starring Rudy Valle. However, an executive scoffed at the idea of a ventriloquist appearing on radio. During the audition, Mr. Bergen forgot his lines and asked for a look at the script. A young man showed Mr. Bergen the script, then started walking away. Suddenly, Charlie McCarthy’s voice rang out: “Let me look at that.” Without hesitation, the young man allowed Charlie McCarthy to “read” the script. The executive’s jaw dropped, and he gave Mr. Bergen his start on radio.
***
© Copyright Bruce D. Bruce; All Rights Reserved
***
The Funniest People in Television and Radio: 250 Anecdotes — Buy
The Funniest People in Television and Radio — Buy The Paperback
The Funniest People in Television and Radio: 250 Anecdotes — Buy Kindle
The Funniest People in Television and Radio: 250 Anecdotes — Buy Apple
The Funniest People in Television and Radio: 250 Anecdotes — Buy Barnes and Noble
The Funniest People in Television and Radio: 250 Anecdotes — Buy Kobo
The Funniest People in Television and Radio: 250 Anecdotes — Buy Smashwords: Many Formats, Including PDF
Presenting
Michael Egan
U.S.A. said:
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION
BANDCAMP MUSIC
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION OF BANDCAMP MUSIC
Music: "My Pal Mescal"
Album: SANTE FE BUFFET
Artist: Wild Bill and the Railroad Cats
Artist Location: Ramsgate, UK
Info:
Bill Renwick
Paul Love
Deven Mantle
Gin Renwick
Price: £1 (GBP) for track; £7 (USD) for 10-track album
Genre: Boogie-Woogie, 1950s
Links:
SANTA FE BUFFET
Wild Bill and the Railroad Cats on Bandcamp
Other Links:
Bruce’s Music Recommendations: FREE pdfs
David Bruce's Amazon Author Page
David Bruce's Smashwords Page
David Bruce's Blog #1
David Bruce's Blog #2
David Bruce's Blog #3
David Bruce's Apple iBookstore
David Bruce has over 140 Kindle books on Amazon.com.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
New Venture
Michael Egan
Bonus Links
Jeannie the Teed-Off Temp
Reader Comment
Current Events
Linda >^..^<
We are all only temporarily able bodied.
Thanks, Linda!
that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Another extra foggy night.
AmfAR Gala
Madonna
Madonna made a surprise appearance at the star-studded amfAR Gala Los Angeles to present her longtime friend and collaborator Jeremy Scott with the Award of Courage in recognition of his work with the organization and his commitment to the fight against HIV/AIDS.
The eleventh edition of the annual event was held in an elaborately decorated tent at the Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood on Thursday night after a one-year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The gala, which was sponsored by Cadillac and FIJI Water, raised more than $1.8 million for HIV/AIDS research.
Shortly after an Ellen Von Unwerth photograph of Madonna was auctioned off for $70,000, the Queen of Pop herself took the stage and paid tribute to the Moschino creative director with a heartfelt speech, in which she also recalled how she was drawn into the fight against the devastating epidemic.
“In 1991, I stood on the amfAR stage and I was forced to clear up rumors that I had AIDS,” Madonna said. “I recall many journalists sticking microphones in my face, asking me, attacking me even, and saying ‘Madonna, Madonna is it true? Are you HIV positive? ’And of course my reply was ‘no, I just want to help people who are.’”
The superstar acknowledged that the battle against HIV/AIDs is ongoing, noting that 1.5 million people had been infected with the disease in last year. “The fight is still not over,” Madonna said. “We can never be too complacent when it comes to the silent killer that continues to wreak havoc in people’s lives across the globe.”
Madonna
Vaccine Mandate
Emilio Estevez
Emilio Estevez has been cut from The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers. Yahoo Entertainment can confirm that the actor won't return for the second season of the Disney+ show as he will not comply with a COVID-19 vaccine mandate. Estevez reprised his role as Gordon Bombay and is the coach of the hockey team. Estevez played the beloved character in all three The Mighty Ducks films in the '90s.
Deadline broke the story that Estevez's option was not picked up "after weeks of back and forth with his team over the show's COVID vaccination requirement." Sources close to the 59-year-old actor hinted to the outlet that creative differences may have played a role in his exit.
According to Deadline, Disney TV Studios, which produces The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers, adopted a mandatory vaccination policy for the cast and crew in Zone A. Zone A includes all actors as well as all crew members who come into direct contact with them.
The Walt Disney Co. was one of the first major companies to require all salaried and nonunion hourly employees be fully vaccinated. The company, like many studios, reached agreements with major unions regarding COVID-19 vaccine mandates.
Emilio Estevez
Production Shuts Down
‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’
Marvel Studios’ “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” is shutting down production the week of Thanksgiving and resuming in early 2022, according to an individual with knowledge of the situation.
Production is shutting down as star Letitia Wright is still recovering from injuries she sustained two months ago while performing a stunt at an on-location shoot in Boston.
Wright plays Shuri, the sister of King T’Challa, who provides the Black Panther and his allies with state-of-the-art Wakandan technology. At the time of Wright’s injury, the studio said the injury wouldn’t impact the production schedule.
Wright will return along with fellow “Black Panther” stars Lupita Nyong’o, Danai Gurira, Daniel Kaluuya, Winston Duke, Florence Kasumba and Angela Bassett. The death of Chadwick Boseman, who played T’Challa in four Marvel films, including “Black Panther,” will be addressed as Marvel has decided to not recast his character.
“Letitia has been recovering in London since September from injuries sustained on the set of Black Panther 2 and is looking forward to returning to work early 2022,” a representative for Wright said a statement to The Hollywood Reporter. “Letitia kindly asks that you keep her in your prayers.”
‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’
Hand Gestures
TikTok
A missing North Carolina teen was reportedly rescued after she used a viral TikTok hand gesture to indicate she was in danger and needed help.
The 16-year-old was found in Kentucky on Thursday after a 911 caller reported that a female passenger riding in the car ahead of them was using the signals, Fox 8 Cleveland reported. According to the Laurel County Sheriff's Office, investigators on the scene found the driver, 61-year-old Herbert Brick, in possession of a photo of the teen engaged in sexual acts.
The teen was first reported missing by her parents in Asheville, North Carolina, on Tuesday, according to the report. Investigators discovered that Brick had driven with the girl to Ohio, though promptly left when relatives of Brick expressed concern about her age and discovered she had been reported missing.
Brick is currently at the Laurel County Correctional Center, where he was arrested for unlawful imprisonment and posession of content showing sexual activity by a minor, Fox8 reported.
The signals - a mix of three hand gestures that convey "violence at home," "I need help," and "domestic violence" - have spread on TikTok as a means to help victims of abuse. In one popular video, which has more than 3.5 million views and 130,000 shares, a woman demonstrates how to subtly use the signals while on a video call with a friend.
TikTok
It's Chinatown, Jake
Lawsuit Dismissed
A Superior Court judge this week threw out a lawsuit filed by a Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy, ruling he had failed to back up his claim that he faced retaliation for reporting an assault by another deputy.
Deputy Austreberto Gonzalez sued L.A. County last year, alleging that after he anonymously reported the alleged assault by a member of what he called "a deputy gang" on another deputy, members of the alleged gang retaliated on him in several ways, including forcing him to respond to an excessive amount of calls for service. Gonzalez also claimed he was pushed out of his field training officer position.
Gonzalez "has no direct evidence of a causal link between any theoretical protected activity and his alleged loss of a trainee," Judge William Fahey wrote in an 11-page ruling, in which the judge concluded Gonzalez had not been subjected "to an adverse employment action." He also said Gonzalez had given contradicting statements about a transfer to another assignment.
The decision to toss the case came after Fahey in April scaled back its scope, allowing the deputy to claim only that he had reported a fight between two deputies and was then subjected to retaliation. The judge banned Gonzalez from introducing any evidence regarding the other deputies' alleged involvement in the Executioners, a group of deputies in the sheriff's Compton station, his attorney Alan Romero said.
After he filed a legal claim last year, Gonzalez testified in an unrelated federal civil rights lawsuit about the alleged activities of the Executioners. In a deposition, he testified that the tattooed deputies in the group have a stronghold over the Compton station and have committed an array of abuses, including fabricating stories about seeing crime suspects carrying guns.
Lawsuit Dismissed
Ecosystem
Baleen Whales
Whalers have plucked giant whales from the sea for much of the last century, reducing their numbers by up to 99 percent for certain species. Some scientists thought that krill — the tiny crustaceans that many whales eat in gargantuan gulps — would explode in number as a result, mostly free from the feeding pressure of the largest animals that have ever lived.
But that didn’t happen. Instead, Antarctic krill numbers have dwindled since the mid-20th century, by more than 80 percent in areas heavily trafficked by whalers. Many other consumers of krill, like seabirds and fish, have suffered too in the absence of the crustaceans and their giant eaters.
Now, scientists have a clearer idea why this happened: whale poop, or rather, the lack of it.
A new study finds that baleen whales, including blue and humpback whales, eat on average three times as much krill and other food as previously thought, and more food in means more poop out. Paradoxically, the collapse of the krill may stem from fewer whales excreting iron-rich, digested krill, denying these ecosystems some crucial nutrients they need to thrive. Phytoplankton blooms, which sustain krill and many other parts of the food web, rely on that iron. Restoring whale populations to prewhaling levels could help bolster these ecosystems and even store more carbon in the ocean, researchers report in the Nov. 4 Nature.
Assessing the precise diet of Boeing 737–sized creatures that gulp down hordes of centimeter-long invertebrates far below the surface of the ocean is not a trivial undertaking. Previous estimates relied on dissections of dead whales or inferring whales’ metabolic needs based on their size. “These studies were educated guesses, and none were conducted on live whales in the wild,” says Matthew Savoca, a marine biologist at Hopkins Marine Station of Stanford University in Pacific Grove, Calif.
Baleen Whales
Warming Is Changing
Arctic
While conducting research in Greenland, ice scientist Twila Moon was struck this summer by what climate change has doomed Earth to lose and what could still be saved.
The Arctic is warming three times faster than the rest of the planet and is on such a knife’s edge of survival that the U.N. climate negotiations underway in Scotland this week could make the difference between ice and water at the top of the world in the same way that a couple of tenths of a degree matter around the freezing mark, scientists say.
Arctic ice sheets and glaciers are shrinking, with some glaciers already gone. Permafrost, the icy soil that traps the potent greenhouse gas methane, is thawing. Wildfires have broken out in the Arctic. Siberia even hit 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius). Even a region called the Last Ice Area showed unexpected melting this year.
In the next couple of decades, the Arctic is likely to see summers with no sea ice.
Between 1971 and 2019, the surface of the Arctic warmed three times faster than the rest of the world, according to the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program.
Arctic
Slave Room Discovered
Pompeii
Pompeii archaeologists said Saturday they have unearthed the remains of a "slave room" in an exceptionally rare find at a Roman villa destroyed by Mount Vesuvius' eruption nearly 2,000 years ago.
The little room with three beds, a ceramic pot and a wooden chest was discovered during a dig at the Villa of Civita Giuliana, a suburban villa just a few hundred metres from the rest of the ancient city.
An almost intact ornate Roman chariot was discovered here at the start of this year, and archaeologists said Saturday that the room likely housed slaves charged with maintaining and prepping the chariot.
The 16-square metre (170-square feet) room was a cross between a bedroom and a storeroom: as well as three beds -- one of which was child sized -- there were eight amphorae, stashed in a corner.
The wooden chest held metal and fabric objects that seem to be part of the harnesses of the chariot horses, and a chariot shaft was found resting on one of the beds.
Pompeii
Giving It Back
Armadillos
Leprosy is an ancient disease, the oldest disease known to be associated with humans, with evidence of characteristic bone pitting and deformities found in burial sites in India as far back as 2000 B.C.
It’s thus only natural that many might think the disease is a relic of the past. My studies in 2018 in a Brazilian state where the disease is prevalent shows that leprosy is closer to us than we might think, however. The disease is growing in armadillos. And while these animals are not exactly the cuddly type to which humans are drawn, armadillo-to-human contact is spreading. And, when the species do interact, armadillos are giving leprosy back.
Leprosy, also called Hansen’s disease, is caused by infection by the bacterium Mycobacterium leprae, causing skin lesions, nerve damage, disfigurement and disability, leading to social stigmatization common to people with this disease. It is is spread mainly by aerosol infection, or coughing and sneezing, from human to human.
Typically, infection requires living in close contact with an untreated infected individual. Symptoms develop slowly, as long as three to seven years after infection. It is rare in the United States, with an average of less than 200 cases diagnosed per year in the last 10 years, mostly in individuals who immigrated from foreign countries where the disease is prevalent. It is found mostly in tropical countries such as Brazil, India, Indonesia and other countries in Africa, southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands. There were 214,783 new cases worldwide in 2016.
Although drugs to treat and cure leprosy are cheap and available for free to anyone diagnosed with the disease, pockets of high incidence in dozens of countries have kept the numbers from declining much in the last few years. The root causes for the continued high prevalence rates remain poverty, poor sanitation and nutrition, and lack of health care availability to treat those diagnosed before nerve damage and disability occur.
Armadillos
| CURRENT MOON lunar phases |
