from Bruce
Anecdotes
Advertising
• Henry Morgan was a comedian who knew how to treat a sponsor — like dirt. One of Mr. Morgan’s radio sponsors (until they fired him) was the maker of the Oh Henry candy bars. While doing commercials for Oh Henry candy bars, Mr. Morgan would say, “Yes, Oh Henry is a meal in itself. But you eat three meals of Oh Henrys and your teeth will fall out.” But Mr. Morgan did even worse than this — from the candy maker’s viewpoint. After one commercial for Oh Henry candy bars, he told the radio audience, “Feed your children enough Oh Henrys, and they’ll get sick and die.”
• Alka-Seltzer once had a very funny TV commercial in which a man making a commercial for spaghetti and meatballs keeps blowing his line — “Mamma mia! That’s some spicy meatball!” — take after take, forcing him to consume more and more meatballs and causing indigestion, which is of course cured by Alka-Seltzer. In real life, the man making the commercial, Jack Somach, suffered through 175 takes, requiring him to bite into 175 meatballs. He skipped lunch and dinner that day.
• Jack Benny’s radio series occasionally made fun of its sponsors. For example, in one commercial, a telegram was read that supposedly came from a Canada Dry Ginger Ale salesman after he had found several people lost in the Sahara Desert without water for 40 days: “I came to their rescue, giving each of them a glass of Canada Dry. Not one of them said they didn’t like it.” (Believe it or not, Canada Dry stopped sponsoring The Jack Benny Program, and General Motors became the new sponsors.)
• An actress was supposed to say these lines on a radio commercial: “Helen, darling, what a delightful necklace! It looks as if it had tiny real violets entwined in it. It speaks of springtime and the outdoors. It gives you an aura of freshness and youth, hope and beauty!” The actress performed flawlessly during rehearsals and during the performance, except that she forgot it was the performance and after saying her lines complained, “Do I actually have to say this garbage?”
• When David Brenner appeared live on The Ed Sullivan Show, he was a major hit — the audience applauded so much that Mr. Sullivan brought him back on stage to take a bow. While acknowledging the audience’s applause, however, Mr. Brenner looked at a TV monitor. The TV audience was seeing none of this wild audience enthusiasm, for after Mr. Brenner’s final joke, the TV cameras had cut to a Preparation H commercial.
• While appearing on My Three Sons, William Frawley (he also played Fred Mertz on I Love Lucy) and the other actors were required to do commercials for the sponsors’ products. Mr. Frawley enjoyed the taping sessions when executives from Quaker Oats or Heinz were present. He used to take a bite of the sponsor’s product, make a face, spit the food out, and then cuss while saying how bad it was.
• In 1986, Michael Jackson made almost $15 million by appearing in two Pepsi TV commercials and serving as a consultant on a third commercial. The commercials did not show Mr. Jackson drinking Pepsi, and they did not show Mr. Jackson holding a Pepsi in his hand. Why not? Mr. Jackson is a Jehovah’s Witness, and he does not drink beverages that contain caffeine — including Pepsi.
• Jackie Gleason stood up for the integrity of The Honeymooners. His character, Ralph Kramden, lived in an apartment with an icebox — the Kramdens were too poor to have a refrigerator. A refrigerator company offered to sponsor the show if the Kramdens got rid of the icebox and used one of its products, but Mr. Gleason refused.
• In a very successful publicity stunt in 1933, Gracie’s brother turned up missing, and Gracie wandered from radio show to radio show searching for him. In a tense radio drama featuring a submerged submarine, a character radioed the submarine captain and asked, “Is Gracie Allen’s brother down there with you?”
• Some celebrities are not for sale. Lily Tomlin once turned down $500,000 to have her character Ernestine (“One ringy-dingy. Two ringy-dingys. A gracious good morning to you. Have I reached the party to whom I am speaking?”) perform in commercials for AT&T.
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© Copyright Bruce D. Bruce; All Rights Reserved
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Presenting
Michael Egan
U.S.A. responded:
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION
BANDCAMP MUSIC
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION OF BANDCAMP MUSIC
Music: "Satan Built My Hotrod"
Album: ATOMIC DRAG EP
Artist: ATOMIC DRAG
Artist Location: Ballymoney, Northern Ireland, UK
Info: “Instrumental Surf Punk Garage Rock from the North Coast of Northern Ireland.”
“Written, played, recorded and mixed by Atomic Drag March - June '21, except ‘Cecilia Ann,’ written by The Surftones.”
“Atomic Drag is Lee McDaid. Old enough to know better but dumb enough to do it anyway, his influences include, but are not limited to, Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet, Big Black (Big Black at their very core were a surf band, a hill he's willing to die on) Dead Kennedys, Pixies and The Bomboras. The debut self-titled EP contains 3 original tracks of horror tinged, Lynchian dark surf punk rock and a gonzoid cover of The Surftones classic ‘Cecilia Ann’ (famously covered by the Pixies, but you knew that).”
“Fuzzy Cracklins - Fuzzy grew up in So Cal and I never lost my love for surf music. Atomic Drag adds in a touch of horror that sets it apart from the beach crowd. Fuzzy's full review is at www.fuzzycracklins.com/2021/08/atomic-drag.html Favorite track: ‘Atomic Undead.’”
Price: £1 (GBP) for track; £3.50 (GBP) for four-track EP
Genre: Instrumental Surf
Links:
ATOMIC DRAG EP
Atomic Drag on Bandcamp
Other Links:
Bruce’s Music Recommendations: FREE pdfs
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Reader Suggestion
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Reader Comment
Current Events
Linda >^..^<
We are all only temporarily able bodied.
Thanks, Linda!
that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Vinnie the shitten is bringing sticks in the house again - she's very proud of them.
Pull 'Brown Sugar'
Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones dropped "Brown Sugar" from their concert setlist, saying they fear 21st century fans won't grasp that the tune is about "the horrors of slavery" and not celebrating it.
In an interview published last week in the Los Angeles Times, guitarist Keith Richards confirmed the song's status after a reporter noticed its conspicuous absence from the group's current "No Filter" tour.
"You picked up on that, huh?" Richards said.
The song's out of rotation for now, but Richards and Mick Jagger said it has not been permanently canned.
The fan favorite hit No. 1 on the Billboard charts on May 29, 1971.
Rolling Stones
Prime Time Nielsens
NFL Football
“NCIS” star Mark Harmon, who has played Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs since the CBS drama began in 2003, had his final night as a regular character on Monday’s show. Gibbs informed his partner after working on a case in Alaska that he was going to stay there.
Monday’s show was seen by an estimated 7.37 million viewers, the Nielsen company said. That number is expected to increase substantially once streaming and delayed viewing is taken into account, particularly as word of Harmon’s exit spreads.
NBC was the most popular network in prime time last week, averaging 6.1 million viewers. CBS had 5.9 million, Fox had 5.3 million, ABC had 3.5 million, Univision had 1.5 million, Telemundo had 1.1 million and Ion Television had 910,000.
ABC’s “World News Tonight” won the evening news ratings race with an average of 7.8 million viewers. NBC’s “Nightly News” had 6.6 million and the “CBS Evening News” had 4.8 million.
For the week of Oct. 4-10, the 20 most-watched prime time programs, their networks and viewerships:
1. NFL Football: Buffalo at Kansas City, NBC, 17.52 million.
2. NFL Football: L.A. Rams at Seattle, Fox, 14.76 million.
3. “NFL Weather Delay,” NBC, 14.75 million.
4. “NFL Post-Game,” Fox, 14 million.
5. “NFL Pregame” (Sunday), NBC, 13.64 million
6. NFL Football: Las Vegas at L.A. Chargers, ESPN, 12.32 million.
7. “The OT,” Fox, 10.24 million.
8. “Football Night in America, Part 3,” NBC, 9.39 million.
9. “60 Minutes,” CBS, 8.47 million.
10. College Football: Alabama at Texas A&M, CBS, 8.33 million.
11. “NCIS,” CBS, 7.96 million.
12. “Equalizer, CBS, 7.67 million.
13. “NFL Pregame” (Thursday), Fox, 7.57 million.
14. “The Voice” (Monday), NBC, 7.48 million.
15. “The Voice” (Tuesday), NBC, 7.21 million.
16. “Chicago Fire,” NBC, 7.18 million.
17. “Young Sheldon,” CBS, 7.118 million.
18. ML Baseball: A.L. Wild Card, N.Y. Yankees at Boston, ESPN, 7.117 million.
19. “NFL Pregame” (Monday), ESPN, 7.1 million.
20. “Chicago Med,” NBC, 7.02 million.
NFL Football
Atlanta Symphony
Nathalie Stutzmann
Nathalie Stutzmann, the French-born contralto turned conductor, will succeed Robert Spano as music director of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra starting with the 2022-23 season and become the second woman to lead a major American orchestra.
The 56-year-old agreed to a four-year contract, the orchestra announced Wednesday, and she plans to spend 10 weeks annually in Atlanta starting in 2022-23.
Marin Alsop was the first woman to head a major American orchestra as music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra from 2007-21.
Spano spent 20 years in Atlanta and left after the 2020-21 season. He will become music director of the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra in 2022-23.
Stutzmann, who lives in Geneva, will become the ASO’s fifth music director after Henry Sopkin, Robert Shaw, Yoel Levi and Spano. She debuted with the orchestra on Dec. 2, 2020, in a program of Lauren Bernofsky’s Passacaglia for Brass Ensemble, Wagner’s “Siegfried Idyll” and Beethoven’s First Symphony. She returned for a second program last February.
Nathalie Stutzmann
Dubai’s Expo 2020
David
One of the most talked about attractions at the world’s fair under way in Dubai is a towering statue made of marble dust that’s raising eyebrows just as the original did more than 500 years ago.
At Italy’s pavilion, a 3D replica of Michelangelo’s David stands tall, his gaze intense and defiant. For most visitors, though, David’s head is all they will see as they tour the pavilion. Only VIPs with special access will be able to catch a view of the statue from head to toe while it’s on display for the next six months at Dubai’s Expo 2020.
The original David is nude and some visitors see the limited view offered as a form of censorship. Others say the way David is displayed at the Expo is a form of artistic expression.
“It is no coincidence that David is not seen from the bottom to the top, as it normally is, but it welcomes people by looking at them in the face,” said David Rampello, the director of art at the Italian pavilion.
It took a team of Italian experts 40 hours of digital scanning to create the replica, made with what organizers describe as one of the world’s largest 3D printers. Artists used filaments from recycled plastic material, then a mix of resins and marble dust to create it.
David
Love Is Love
The Netherlands
In the country that first legalised gay marriage, the Dutch crown princess has the right to marry a person of any gender without giving up her right to the throne, the prime minister said on Tuesday.
Crown Princess Catharina-Amalia, 17, has not made any comments on the matter, and little is known of her personal life. The question arose after recently published books argued that the country's rules exclude the possibility of a same-sex royal couple.
But Prime Minister Mark Rutte said times have changed since one of his predecessors last addressed the issue in the year 2000.
"The government believes that the heir can also marry a person of the same sex," Rutte wrote in a letter to parliament.
Rutte said that one issue remains unresolved: how a gay marriage would affect later succession of the royal couple's children. And it doesn't make sense to try to decide that now, he said.
The Netherlands
'There Have To Be Consequences'
U.S. Capitol
A federal judge in Washington has repeatedly sentenced people who stormed the U.S. Capitol to more prison time than prosecutors sought, saying that even people who were not violent should face consequences for joining the unprecedented assault.
In the past week, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan has imposed sentences ranging from 14 to 45 days on four people who pleaded guilty to unlawful parading and picketing inside the Capitol building on Jan. 6 — a misdemeanor offense.
"There have to be consequences for participating in an attempted violent overthrow of the government, beyond sitting at home," Chutkan said at one of the hearings.
Chutkan, a former public defender appointed to the federal judiciary by former President Barack Obama, last week sentenced another defendant who admitted to the misdemeanor charge, Matthew Mazzocco, to 45 days in prison.
That court hearing marked the first time that one of the judges overseeing the hundreds of Jan. 6 prosecutions imposed a sentence that was harsher than what the government asked for.
U.S. Capitol
Push For Hunt
Sandhill Crane
Wisconsin Republicans brought in incontinent draft-dodging rocker and avid hunter Ted Nugent (R-Viagra) on Wednesday to publicize a package of bills that would declare open hunting season on sandhill cranes and allow anyone age 18 or older to carry concealed firearms without a permit.
Nugent appeared with more than 20 Republican lawmakers, including Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu, inside the Assembly chamber. The musician and conservative activist said that “hunting is essential and any regulation that doesn’t deal with safety or science-based wildlife management is an obstacle to participation.”
Nugent, who lives in neighboring Michigan, is the national spokesman for Hunter Nation, a group that won a court order forcing an unprecedented late-winter wolf hunt in Wisconsin. The hunt, held during the animal’s breeding season in February, outraged conservationists and sparked calls for the state Department of Natural Resources to cancel the upcoming fall wolf hunt.
One proposal would create a sandhill crane hunting season. Former Republican state Rep. Joel Kleefisch introduced a similar bill in 2012, arguing that the birds devour farmers’ corn seeds and fledgling stalks. The bill met with intense opposition from bird lovers — Wisconsin is home to the International Crane Foundation — and the proposal died.
Nugent said in addition to population control, sandhills are tasty. “Are you familiar with the term ribeye?” Nugent said. “They’re ribeyes in the sky.”
Sandhill Crane
Skis Reunited
Iron Age
Two Iron Age skis are set for a happy reunion after 1,300 years apart, following the discovery of a second ski on an icy mountain in Norway by glacier archaeologists.
In 2014, the glacier archaeology group Secrets of the Ice uncovered a lone ski at the Digervarden ice patch in Reinheimen National Park in southern Norway. Despite the ski’s age, its icy burial kept it well preserved, and even its original binding — where the skier placed their foot — remained intact. At the time, it was only one of two skis dating to more than 1,000 years ago with preserved binding, Secrets of the Ice reported in an Oct. 5 post.
The team monitored the ice patch for the next seven years, hoping that the melting ice would reveal the ski's missing partner. Their patience paid off; in September, they spotted the second ski just 16 feet (5 meters) from the spot where the first one was found.
Getting the second Iron Age ski to the lab for analysis was not an easy task. After satellite data suggested substantial ice melt at the ski-discovery spot on the mountain, the team hiked up and found the second ski on Sept. 20. But they didn't have the right tools to safely free it from the ice, so they left it there. Then, an autumn storm complicated the recovery effort by dumping a lot of snow, burying the ski again.
When the researchers returned on Sept. 26, they were ready — carrying ice axes, gas cookers and packing materials they could wrap the ski in for the hike back. After a three-hour hike, they finally found the ski under 12 inches (30 centimeters) of snow, thanks to their GPS tracker. Brushing off the snow was easy enough, but the ice had an "iron grip" on the ski, so the team used ice picks and lukewarm water heated on gas cookers to free the ski, Pilø wrote in the post.
Iron Age
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