JUNE 11, 1933: WEREWOLF? THERE WOLF.

Actor, comedian, director, screenwriter, author and activist Gene Wilder was born on June 11, 1933.  After his first film role playing a hostage in Bonnie and Clyde, he went on to star in such memorable films as Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, The Producers, Young Frankenstein and Blazing Saddles.

 

“Invention, my dear friends, is 93% perspiration, 6% electricity, 4% evaporation, and 2% butterscotch ripple.” — Willy Wonka in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory

 

“The clue obviously lies in the word “cheddar.” Let’s see now. Seven letters. Rearranged, they come to, let me see: “Rachedd.” “Dechdar.” “Drechad.” “Chaderd” – hello, chaderd! Unless I’m very much mistaken, chaderd is the Egyptian word meaning “to eat fat.” Now we’re getting somewhere!” – Sigerson Holmes in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes Smarter Brother

 

“You’ve got to remember that these are just simple farmers. They’re people of the land. The common clay of the New West. You know – morons.” – The Waco Kid in Blazing Saddles

 

“This is a nice boy. This is a good boy. This is a mother’s angel. And I want the world to know once and for all, and without any shame, that we love him. I’m going to teach you. I’m going to show you how to walk, how to speak, how to move, how to think. Together, you and I are going to make the greatest single contribution to science since the creation of fire.” – Dr. Frankenstein in Young Frankenstein

 

I’m in pain and I’m wet and I’m still hysterical! – Leo Bloom in The Producers

Advertisements

JUNE 6, 1971: THE SHEW MUST GO ON

Ed Sullivan was to the golden age of television what Google is to searching.  He ruled Sunday night TV for 23 years – from 1948 to his very last broadcast on this day in 1971. Sullivan presented acts from the era’s biggest stars to acrobats, dancing bears, puppets, contortionists, you name it.  Ten thousand in all – if they were entertainers, an appearance on the Sullivan show was their holy grail.

Musical performances from rock to opera were a staple of the program. Even its first broadcast, when it was known as Toast of the Town, made music history as Broadway composers Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II previewed the score of their upcoming musical, South Pacific. And after that, West Side Story, Cabaret, Man of La Mancha – if it was on Broadway, it was on Sullivan. One of those Broadway musicals, Bye Bye Birdie, was all about making it on the Sullivan show.

Sullivan also chronicled the history of rock and roll from Elvis Presley’s appearance in 1956 through the Supremes, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Doors, the Mamas and the Papas, and on June 6, 1971, the last program, Gladys Knight and the Pips.

When CBS canceled the show, the network let it end with a whimper.  But in the 33 years since cancellation, numerous tribute shows and DVDs have kept Sullivan in the public eye.

Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force! You are about to embark upon a great crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty loving people everywhere march with you. In company with our brave Allies and brothers in arms on other fronts, you will bring about the destruction of the German war machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed peoples of Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world. — General Dwight D. Eisenhower, June 6, 1944

MAY 30, 1908: THAT’S ALL FOLKS

Although Mel Blanc, “the Man of a Thousand Voices,” is most often remembered as the voice of Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig, Daffy Duck, Woody Woodpecker, Tweety Bird, Sylvester, Yosemite Sam, Speedy Gonzales, Foghorn Leghorn, Pepé Le Pew, the Tasmanian Devil and many of the other characters from theatrical cartoons and Hanna-Barbera’s television cartoons, he had a long career as a comedian and character actor in radio and television. He was born on May 30, 1908, and died in 1989.

Blanc was a regular on The Jack Benny Program in various roles, and appeared on many other shows (Fibber McGee and Molly, Great Gildersleeve, Abbott and Costello, Burns and Allen), including his own which ran from September 1946 to June 1947. In the Jack Benny radio show he was Carmichael, the irascible polar bear who guarded the comedian’s underground vault; his outspoken parrot; his violin teacher, Monsieur Le Blanc; his Mexican gardener, Sy; and even his Maxwell automobile.

Blanc was easily the most prolific voice actor in the history of the industry and the first to be identified in the ending credits. In his 60-year career, he helped develop nearly 400 characters and provided voices for some 3,000 animated cartoons. During the cartoon heydays of the 1940’s and 50’s, he voiced 90 percent of the Warner Brothers cartoon empire. As movie critic Leonard Maltin said, “It is astounding to realize that Tweety Bird and Yosemite Sam are the same man!”

A gem from The Jack Benny Program:

May 17, 1620: Round and Round She Goes

An English traveler happened upon an unusual contraption while passing through what is present-day Bulgaria on May 17, 1620. It was a circular device with seats attached to its perimeter. Children were tethered to the seats and the whole device turned round and round. The Englishman approached the device hoping to save these poor tykes. But as he drew near he heard their squealing and laughter. They were not being punished; they were being entertained. The Englishman’s account of this marvelous contraption is the earliest reference to what ultimately became known as the carousel — or merry go-round to those who disdain the French.

Carousels became popular throughout Europe a century later and in the United States a bit later. These carousels featured carved horses and other fanciful animals — zebras, lions, tigers, unicrons, dragons. At first they were powered by animals or people then eventually by steam engines and finally electricity. Gears and cranks gave the animals their familiar up and down motion.

Today the carousel is mostly favored by those too young or too timid to brave the more heart-pounding rides such as roller coaster, tilt-a-whirl, and loop-the-loop.

Carousels Not Heart-Pounding?

MAY 12, 1812: POETRY WITHOUT NAUGHTY WORDS

Edward Lear, born in England in 1812, was a true dabbler — artist, illustrator, musician, author, poet. Starting off his career as an illustrator, he was employed to illustrate birds and animals first for the Zoological Society and then for Edward Stanley, the Earl of Derby, who had a private menagerie. He also made drawings during his journeys that later illustrated his travel books. and illustrations for the poetry of Alfred Lord Tennyson. As a musician, Lear played the accordion, flute, guitar, and piano (not simultaneously). He also composed music for a number of Romantic and Victorian poems, most notably those of Tennyson.

Lear is remembered chiefly for his work as a writer of literary nonsense. He might easily have been given the title Father of the Limerick for bringing the much maligned form into popularity (without the raunchiness that later found its way into the form). In 1846, he published A Book of Nonsense, a volume of limericks that went through three editions. In 1871 he published Nonsense Songs, Stories, Botany and Alphabets, which included his most famous nonsense song, The Owl and the Pussycat, which he wrote for the children of the Earl of Derby.

Lear’s nonsense books were successful during his lifetime, but he found himself fighting rumors that he was just a pseudonym and that the books were actually written by the Earl of Derby. Conspiracy theorists cited as evidence the facts that both men were named Edward, and that Lear is an anagram of Earl. A few even suggested he was born in Kenya, not England.

The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea
In a beautiful pea green boat,
They took some honey, and plenty of money,
Wrapped up in a five pound note.
The Owl looked up to the stars above,
And sang to a small guitar,
‘O lovely Pussy! O Pussy my love,
What a beautiful Pussy you are,
You are,
You are!
What a beautiful Pussy you are!’

Pussy said to the Owl, ‘You elegant fowl!
How charmingly sweet you sing!
O let us be married! too long we have tarried:
But what shall we do for a ring?’
They sailed away, for a year and a day,
To the land where the Bong-tree grows
And there in a wood a Piggy-wig stood
With a ring at the end of his nose,
His nose,
His nose,
With a ring at the end of his nose.

‘Dear pig, are you willing to sell for one shilling
Your ring?’ Said the Piggy, ‘I will.’
So they took it away, and were married next day
By the Turkey who lives on the hill.
They dined on mince, and slices of quince,
Which they ate with a runcible spoon;
And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,
They danced by the light of the moon,
The moon,
The moon,
They danced by the light of the moon.

Naughty Words Without Poetry

Stand-up comedian, social critic, satirist, actor, writer/author George Carlin was born on May 12, 1937 (died 2008). Noted for his black humor as well as his thoughts on politics, the English language, psychology, religion, and various taboo subjects, he won five Grammy Awards for his comedy albums. Carlin and his classic “Seven Dirty Words” comedy routine were central to the 1978 U.S. Supreme Court case in which the justices affirmed the government’s power to regulate indecent material on the public airwaves.

In his own words:

Swimming is not a sport. Swimming is a way to keep from drowning. That’s just common sense!

♦

Honesty may be the best policy, but it’s important to remember that apparently, by elimination, dishonesty is the second-best policy.

The very existence of flamethrowers proves that sometime, somewhere, someone said to themselves, “You know, I want to set those people over there on fire, but I’m just not close enough to get the job done.”

♦

Religion has convinced people that there’s an invisible man…living in the sky, who watches everything you do every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a list of ten specific things he doesn’t want you to do. And if you do any of these things, he will send you to a special place, of burning and fire and smoke and torture and anguish for you to live forever, and suffer and burn and scream until the end of time. But he loves you. He loves you and he needs money.

MAY 7, 1885: COMIN’ THROUGH THE TV, SHOOTIN’ UP THE LAND

An essential player in Hollywood westerns was the leading man’s sidekick, and many sidekicks became just as famous as their starring partners: Andy Devine was Jingles to Wild Bill Hickock, Pat Buttram and Smiley Burnette were both sidekicks to Gene Autry, Jay Silverheels was Tonto to the Lone Ranger, Leo Carillo was Pancho to the Cisco Kid. The top sidekick was, of course, Gabby Hayes, born May 7, 1885. Through the 1930s and 1940s, he was sidekick to Hopalong Cassidy in 18 films and to Roy Rogers in 41.

 

The third of seven children, George Francis Hayes was born in an upstate New York hotel owned by his father. As a young man, he worked in a circus and played semi-pro baseball while a teenager. He ran away from home at 17, and joined a touring stock company. He married Olive Ireland in 1914 and the duo enjoyed a successful vaudeville career. Although he had retired in his 40s, he lost money in the 1929 stock market crash, and he felt the need to work again.  He and his wife moved to California and he began his movie career, taking various roles until finally settling into a Western career.

 

Hayes first gained fame as Hopalong Cassidy’s sidekick Windy Halliday in many films between 1936-39. He left the Cassidy films in a salary dispute and was legally prevented from using the name “Windy.”   So “Gabby” Hayes was born.  He gained fame as a sidekick to stars such as John Wayne, Randolph Scott, and, of course, Roy Rogers – beginning with Southward Ho in 1939 and ending with Heldorado in 1946.

 

Offstage Hayes was the complete opposite of his screen persona – an elegant bon vivant, man-about-town and connoisseur.  He died in 1969.  On the subject of his movies: “I hate ’em. Really can’t stand ’em. They always are the same. You have so few plots – the stagecoach holdup, the rustlers, the mortgage gag, the mine setting and the retired gunslinger.”

♣

“You’re a good-looking boy: you’ve big, broad shoulders. But he’s a man. And it takes more than big, broad shoulders to make a man.” — High Noon

“There are only two things that are better than a gun: a Swiss watch and a woman from anywhere. Ever had a good… Swiss watch?” — Red River

“A gun is a tool, Marian; no better or no worse than any other tool: an ax, a shovel or anything. A gun is as good or as bad as the man using it. Remember that.” –Shane

“You don’t look like the noble defender of poor defenseless widows. But then again, I don’t look like a poor defenseless widow.” –Once Upon a Time in the West

Everybody Loves Saturday Night, Part 4:  War and Peace at Naughty Nora’s

Necker Lincoln was certain his nose was broken.  He was halfway to Naughty Nora’s before the bleeding stopped. It just wasn’t right. Sure, he had called Marie’s momma a rhinoceros, but that was no reason for the woman to beat up on him. After slapping him some, Marie had tossed him from the porch of their house to the wet ground. And the mud and blood made him look as though he had – well, been in a fight.

“Daylight come and me wan . . .” Naughty Nora’s hushed as Necker entered. Prisoners and captors alike looked at him in awe.

“Are you back from the front?” asked Nora.

“What?” Necker responded.

“The battle,” said Billy. “Tell us of the battle.”

“The battle?” said Necker, a little confused. Then he studied his own appearance. “Oh, the battle. I guess it didn’t go too well.”

“Oh my God,” wailed Billy. “The bloody, bitter tragedy. The agony of defeat.”

Maurice, who had not been singing, who had been sitting in a corner, dwelling on the infamy of such a big country as the United States picking on their little country – all the while lubricating his thoughts with a bottle of rum – stood and shouted: “kill all the prisoners!”

“Wait a minute, Maurice,” said the still reasonable Everette.

“Yes, wait a minute, Maurice,” echoed Estelle who, with all eyes now on her, regretted having spoken out of turn.

“Tell us more about the battle, Necker,” Everette urged. “Were we badly outnumbered?”

“Outnumbered?”

“Yes,” said Everette. “How many of the enemy were there?”

Necker grinned sheepishly. “There was just Ma – ”

Estelle was the first to hear the same low rumble they had heard earlier. She hurried to the window, and the others followed, everyone crowding to see what was happening. Once again, the great tank crept down Christopher Columbus Boulevard, this time from the opposite direction. As Her Majesty’s Royal Militia marched into sight, Estelle counted them, all 37 of them, followed by an even larger entourage than before. And they pulled a cart piled high with fish.

“Our glorious army has returned,” shouted Billy. “We have won the war.”

“We have defeated the Americans,” chanted Maurice, jumping up and down. The two men ran out to follow the parade.

“The war is over,” said Nora. “Peace is here. We hold no grudges. A round of drinks on the house.”

Then, just as suddenly as they had disappeared, the lights returned, bathing Naughty Nora’s with a kind of normalcy, with a peace on earth, good will to all. The jukebox kicked back to life. Estelle looked around. Tourists and locals had returned to laughing conversation. Penelope was flirting with the French hippy. Sidney Smith sat down at Estelle’s table and resumed staring at her breasts. “What the hell,” she said with a sigh, as she leaned back in her chair and sipped her rum.

The jukebox sang: “Everybody, everybody. Everybody loves Saturday Night.”

♥

Everybody Loves Saturday Night is one of the 15 stories from Calypso, Stories of the Caribbean, available as an ebook or in a print edition with real pages and everything.

MAY 2, 1843: THE TOWN THAT CRIED WOLF

Chances are you’ve never heard of Champoeg — unless maybe you’re from Oregon which is where it is, or was. Champoeg had the historical significance of being the first American government on the West Coast, having been established by representatives of Willamette Valley settlers on May 2, 1843, by a vote of 52-50. These representatives had held a series of meetings starting back in February to entertain measures to deal with the threat of wolves. During these so-called “Wolf Meetings,” the conferees established a series of civil codes (although its doubtful the wolves paid much attention to them).
When the Oregon Territory was created in 1848, Champoeg was cold-shouldered as upstart Oregon City became its capital. This despite the fact that Champoeg had become rather a bustling little metropolis with a steamboat landing, a ferry across the Willamette River, a stagecoach office, a granary and a warehouse. Ten streets ran north to south, crossed by six east-west thoroughfares.
Champoeg chugged along through the years as Oregon grew and gained statehood. Then in 1861, the Willamette River reared its ugly head, rising 55 feet above its normal stage, flooding the town and destroying every structure in it with the exception of two saloons (there’s a lesson here somewhere). Champoeg was never rebuilt after the flood; all that remains is a small monument describing it place in history and a stake marking a street corner (probably the one where a saloon stood).

“Well!”

Although he was first heard on radio as a guest of Ed Sullivan, Jack Benny debuted his own radio show for NBC on May 2, 1932. After six months he moved to CBS and then in 1933 back to NBC. Although he continued to jump back and forth on networks, his radio program lasted until 1955, some five years after his television program appeared.

Benny was a fixture on radio and TV for three decades, and is still considered one of the best. He was a master of comic timing, creating laughter with pregnant pauses or a single expression, such as his signature “Well!“

Appearing with him over the years were Eddie “Rochester” Anderson, Don Wilson, Dennis Day, Mary Livingston, Phil Harris, Mel Blanc and Sheldon Leonard. Leonard helped Benny produce what was said to be the longest laugh in radio history. Leonard as a holdup man approached Benny and demanded “your money or your life.” Benny remained silent. Finally, Leonard said “Well!?” and Benny answered “I’m thinking it over!”

Coconut Woman, Part 2: Time to Talk of Pirates

Everett and Malachi were both there that evening in March when Harriet entertained the young couple from Ottawa, here for their fifth anniversary. As usual, Everett was explaining to the newcomers his settling-land-rising-water theory.

“Now if you was to come back for your tenth anniversary,” said Everett, scratching furiously with a stubby pencil in a tiny spiral notebook, “the water’d be right up to here.” He held his outstretched hand between his nose and upper lip. The young woman from Ottawa looked at him and gulped as though she were already threatened, since a water level just below Everett’s nose would be well above hers.

“It’s just a matter of time,” Everett continued. “And not very much time at that. The forces of nature move ever and evermore onward.”

“Honey, you know that can’t be true,” said Harriet. It wasn’t clear whether honey was Everett or the young woman from Ottawa. “It’s like the ozone layer and global warming and such. Scientists scribble in their little notepads just like Everett here, and they come up with statistics to prove whatever they think needs proving. Now, if I was to get up at say seven in the morning, and it was say forty degrees out, but it got up to eighty by noon, I could scribble in my little notebook and come up with a theory that by five o’clock it’d be a hundred and sixty degrees, now couldn’t I?”

The young woman from Ottawa giggled a little, and her husband smiled. Everett glared, snorted and said: “It ain’t that simple, and you know full well, Harriet.”

“Well, maybe not,” said Harriet. “But Malachi’s ideas are pretty simple, aren’t they Malachi? When you going to start in on them?”

“I don’t know if it’s something I should talk about,” said Malachi, studying the couple from Ottawa.

“Why not?” asked Harriet. “You’re always talking about your pirates.”

“But lately I been wonderin’ if maybe too many people are gettin’ to know about it.”

“I’d say the more people the better,” Harriet teased. “If we’re gonna find that treasure, honey, we got to get serious looking before it’s all under water.” She hee-hawed and slapped the arms of her rocker. The couple from Ottawa joined in but only with polite little laughs that wouldn’t offend the two men and their theories.

“Henri Caesar was a pirate that learned his trade from the infamous Lafitte brothers,” said Malachi suddenly, evidently seeing his window of opportunity swinging shut. “Cruel, cruel he was. Plundered for nearly thirty years before they hanged him. Hundreds of ships. I’ve studied him a lot, and I’m certain that he buried some of his treasure around here, possibly on this very beach. Half mile south of here they found an old grave. Caesar usually killed his victims, all of them, right on the ship, except certain young women he took a fancy to. If they refused his advances, he’d kill them too. But if they accepted, they were spared, at least until he grew tired of them. They found one of them in that grave. At least part of her.”

The young woman from Ottawa, white-faced and wide-eyed, winced and said: “My goodness.”

“And in nearly two hundred years,” Harriet scoffed, “nobody has been able to find that treasure. But Malachi’s going to find it before this place becomes an aquarium.”

Harriet’s debunking of the Malachi treasure myth was interrupted by the appearance of two men whose arrival was so silent and sudden that it caused the young woman from Ottawa to let out a tiny shriek and Harriet herself to jump slightly. They were both rumpled and shaggy, though not dirty. The tall one could have passed for a pirate and probably was in the eyes of the young woman from Ottawa. The shorter, clean-shaven one spoke in a studied, polite, but somewhat gravelly voice. “Good evening, folks. Sorry to disturb you. We’ve tied up at the harbor down the road for the night. Headed to the out islands tomorrow morning. Gentlemen there said you were the closest place that took in folks for the night, and we were wondering if you might have a room available.”

continued

Coconut Woman originally appeared in Tampa Tribune Fiction Quarterly.  It is one of 15 stories featured in Calypso: Stories of the Caribbean.