Shirley MacLaine, oddly enough, is Warren Beatty’s brother.
Amidst allegations of being kidnapped, Casey Kasem was found in South Kitsap County, Washington, visiting his long-time friends, Stanley Phartuccio and Shirley MacLaine at the Fir Trees Everywhere Retirement Home. The three 80-somethings enjoyed a nice lunch and a sing-along, completely unaware of the media furor over Mr. Kasem’s alleged abduction.
During the Kasem/Phartuccio/MacLaine soirée, a little dog named Snuckles was attracted by the upbeat music they were playing, and ran across the street to join them but was sadly run over by a car. Casey was reportedly crushed by the incident.
Casey at the Bat author, Ernest Thayer is the only person in Baseball Hall of Fame to never play or manage a game of baseball at the Major League level.
Thayer David, who played several characters on the ABC soap Dark Shadows has returned as a ghost himself according to several witnesses. The ghost itself also has several characters including the gentle Ben Stokes and the erudite Professor. However the most fearful of the manifestations is the ghost of Count Petofi, which has been seen by many New Yorkers including David Letterman, who claims the Count and his severed hand make regular appearances backstage and disturb guests to his show.
Count Petofi was the original voice of The Count on Sesame Street.
Jim Henson’s first job out of college was overseeing the placement of sesame seeds on Wonderbread hamburger rolls. As junior engineer, he was responsible for maintaining the seed-placing machine and ensuring that the quality standard of 42 spb (seeds per bun) was accomplished with an error rate no greater than .666%.
After three months of excruciating boredom, he suffered a minor breakdown. He was found talking to himself behind the machine with hamburger buns on his hands. After a short stay in a therapeutic facility, he changed careers and became a puppeteer.
Jim Henson’s best known creation, Kermit, was originally a Platypus, and was either eaten or blown up in all of the early commercial work, while other Muppets looked on and hollered: “You Bastard! You killed Kermit!”
Stanley Phartuccio’s father was named Kermit; his mother was the former Verlinda von Velgeberre of Ulm, Germany. They married in a Cairo church on March 17, 1922. Winston Churchill was the best man.
Verlinda von Velgeberre later had a highly scandalous affair with a much younger man, Orson Bean.
Rowan Atkins named his popular character, Mr. Bean, after his beloved pet guppy Mr. Beanie. When he found out his father had carved a lima bean to look like a guppy, he was devastated. His father defended his actions, stating “Rowan killed his first 42 guppies by overfeeding them. I was tired of attending guppy funerals.”
[inspired by my favorite Night Court episode…John Larroquette’s pet turtle was a carved potato]
While on Rowan and Martin’s Laugh In, presidential candidate Richard Nixon kept flubbing the line “Sock it to me.” Repeatedly saying “Socket monkey,” “Sexton Mooney” and even “Secretary Mimi” until finally getting the line correct on the 57th take.
“The Lucy Show” (1962-1968) was cancelled following the furor over its last filmed episode, “Sexton Mooney.” The plot went something like this: Lucy wanted to up her social standing at the bank where she worked with Mr. Mooney. Upon finding out Mooney belongs to an exclusive, and powerful, lodge, Lucy badgers the man into letting her pledge. In the final scene we see Lucy, hogtied naked with ball-gag in mouth, being paddled by the lodge members. And, of course, when the gag is removed, Lucy goes: Waaaaaaaahhhhhhh! This was never shown on TV, and all copies were supposedly destroyed. And Lucy was back next year with “Here’s Lucy.”
Alice Liddell, of Wonderland fame, had a sister named Lucy. She didn’t go to Wonderland, of course, but did make it over to Narnia.
C.S. Lewis was dyslexic and meant to write The Chronicles of Varnish.
I would read that.
The original Japanese translation of Lewis’s The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe had Mr. Tumnis as a half human half octopus and featured a racy scene with the White Witch and his tentacles.
In the first performances of Macbeth King James insisted that no props be used, and the eyes of newts and livers of blaspheming Jews were re-used by The King’s Men.
The Kingsmen’s elocution on “Louie, Louie,” despite views to the contrary, was spot on; the song was sung precisely as written. Richard Berry, when alerted to the mounting furor over the lyrics, admitted he was rather inebriated when he wrote the song and may have slurred some of the words.
President Richard M. Nixon named Stanley Phartuccio to the National Strategic Commission on Bismuth Procurement and Applications. He served for the next seven years before resigning in a huff over his seat assignment.
Almost completely forgotten during the Watergate scandal was the discovery that Bob Haldeman had secretly organized and directed funds to a front organization pushing to have Nixon’s face added to the Mount Rushmore memorial.