Ed Asner won seven Primetime Emmy Awards, the most of any male performer. Five were for portraying Lou Grant.
Following his service in the US Army Signal Corps during the Korean War, Ed Asner helped found the Playwrights Theatre Club of Chicago. He soon departed for New York City, and the club reformed itself as The Compass Players, and later, The Second City Theatre.
The USS New York (LPD-21) is a San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock. She is the fifth ship of the United States Navy to be named after the Empire State. Commissioned in 2009 and still on active duty, she includes almost seven tons of steel at her bow which was salvaged from the wreckage of the World Trade Center.
“(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay” is a 1968 song by soul vocalist Otis Redding, co-written by Redding and Steve Cropper.
Redding recorded the song during two sessions at the Stax recording studio in Memphis, Tennessee, on November 22nd and December 7, 1967. Three days after the second recording session, Redding died when his plane crashed into Lake Monona while attempting to land in Madison, Wisconsin, during bad weather.
After Redding’s death, Cropper finished the mix of the song, which was released in January of 1968; it reached #1 on the Billboard Hot 100, making it the first posthumously-released song to become a #1 hit on the main U.S. chart.
Steve Cropper and bassist Donald “Duck” Dunn were recruited by pianist/arranger Paul Schaffer to join The Blues Brothers, a band formed by SNL alumni John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd. It was Belushi who affectionately referred to Cropper as “the Colonel.” Both Belushi and Aykroyd would give nicknames to all of the band members. Along with Dunn and Cropper, there were Matt “Guitar” Murphy, Tom “Bones” Malone (trombone), Lou “Blue Lou” Marini (sax), Alan “Mr. Fabulous” Rubin (trumpet), Tom “Triple Scale” Scott (sax), and Steve “Getdwa” Jordan (drums). Shaffer was Paul “The Shiv”, and Belushi and Aykroyd were “Joliet” Jake and “Elwood” Blues, respectively.
Otis could hardly been sittin’ on a dock, as a dock is the watery party boats and ships are in when they tie up to a Pier or maybe a Wharf (a large conglomeration of several piers). Then there’s a Mole- a type of breakwater (in this context , not a small burrowing mammal) and then there’s a Quay, which is Parallel to the shore, instead of sticking out.
Quay County, in eastern New Mexico, is named for Pennsylvania senator Matthew Stanley Quay who supported statehood for New Mexico. Matthew Stanley Quay lived from 1833 to 1904 and he represented Pennsylvania in the US Senate from 1887 until 1899 and from 1901 until his death in 1904. During his service he helped elect Benjamin Harrison as president in 1888 and was also instrumental in the 1900 election of Theodore Roosevelt as vice president. In his final Senate years as a member of the Committee on Territories he supported statehood for Oklahoma, New Mexico and Arizona.
Franklin County of Idaho, including the county seat of Preston, where the movie Napoleon Dynamite was filmed, was named after Franklin D. Richards, an apostle in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. It is the only county named Franklin in the US not named for statesman Benjamin Franklin.
In Marvel Comics, Franklin Richards is the son of Reed Richards (Mister Fantastic) and Susan Storm Richards (the Invisible Woman), of the superhero group The Fantastic Four.
The cosmic radiation which gave his parents their powers also affected Franklin’s genetic structure, making him a mutant. He has numerous powerful superhuman abilities, including telepathy, telekinesis, and the ability to restructure matter at the molecular level and manipulate reality; he is generally considered to be one of the most powerful beings in the universe.
Marvel Comics didnt originally own the Superhero Captain Marvel - the character was developed by Fawcett Comics in 1939, first issue February 1940. He said SHAZAM to get his powers. However, there was then a series of lawsuits from DC (then Detective Comics, aka National Comics Publications) claiming Captain Marvel was a Superman rip-off (which indeed he was). The suits went back and forth, but at the end Fawcett was failing anyway, and DC got the rights.
However, DC let the trademark lapse, so MF Enterprises made it’s own Captain Marvel- Marvel Came up with it’s own character by that name in 1967, was sued by MF, and in the settlement, Marvel got the trademark.
From 1972 to 1978 DC published Shazam, naming the character Captain Marvel. DC wanted to give the book the subtitle The Original Captain Marvel, but was sued by Marvel comics. Thus although the character can be called Captain Marvel, the Comic itself has to be called Shazam.
Oddly the original Marvel character was named Captain Mar-Vell , and had different powers.
So this is why the Captain Marvel name has such a weird history (and I left out some bits) and why Marvel and DC both have characters with that name.
Farrah Fawcett’s red swimsuit poster from 1976 has sold more than 12 million copies. It is considered the best-selling poster to date.
Farrah Fawcett chose the red one-piece swimsuit from her closet, instead of a two-piece bikini, to conceal a scar on her stomach (from a childhood incident). Fawcett also did her own hair and makeup, and the shoot was done in the backyard of the home she shared with her then-husband, Lee Majors.
The iconic swimsuit is on display at the Smithsonian. It also served as the inspiration for the red swimsuits worn by the cast of Baywatch.
Good trivia!
After college and playing football at Eastern Kentucky University, Lee Majors got an NFL offer to try out for the (then) St. Louis Cardinals. Instead, he moved to Los Angeles and worked at the Recreation and Parks Department in North Hollywood Park. Originally born with the name Harvey Lee Yeary and wanting to break into acting, he took his stage name as a tribute to college football’s Heisman Trophy finalist halfback from the University of Tennessee, Johnny Majors. Johnny Majors finished second in the 1956 Heisman Trophy voting to Paul Hornung.
Johnny Majors never played in the NFL. He played one season in Canada for the CFL’s Montreal Alouettes before becoming a standout coach for Tennessee.
Alouette is French for “lark.” The Royal Canadian Air Force’s 425 Tactical Fighter Squadron is nicknamed the “Alouette” squadron, and its motto is “Je te plumerai”, from the Quebecois children’s song, “Alouette”, with it’s motto translated to English as “I will pluck you.” The song is based on the lark’s song, often the first birdsong heard in the morning, causing lovers to rise and depart from each other. It also signifies gossip, and carrier of bad news. The singer, upon hearing the lark, wants to “pluck its head” (Je te plumerai la tête), then “pluck its beak” (Je te plumerai le bec), and so on.
Royal Canadian Air Force recently celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2024. It uses the CF-18 Hornet as it’s Primary Fighter aircraft. The RCAF, along with 50 other nations uses the C-130 Hercules as air to air refueling, cargo transport, gunship support, airborne deployments, search and rescue, and troop transport. During the Balkans conflict the RCAF operated a base in Italy. They also used a base in the NATO island of Diego Garcia. Their Motto is Per ardua ad astra.
The Lockheed C-130 Hercules holds the record for the longest continuous military aircraft production run in history. In production since 1954, it surpasses 70 years of continuous manufacturing lines by Lockheed Martin.
In October 1963, a KC-130F successfully landed on and took off from the aircraft carrier USS Forrestal without modification, to set a record for the heaviest aircraft to land on a carrier.
The Straight Dope Message Board has had a thread on the Lockheed C-130 Hercules cargo aircraft and transport since April 2015: C-130 Hercules cargo plane turns 60
… and, I just bumped that thread.
In play —
Fat Albert is the nickname of the Navy’s Blue Angels C-130 support plane. He is operated by a US Marine Corps aircrew.
The character of Fat Albert was introduced in 1967, in the segment “Buck Buck” on the record album “Revenge” by Bill Cosby.
Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids was an animated children’s television series, which aired on CBS from 1972 until 1985. The show was created by Bill Cosby, who based it, and the characters, on his standup routines and his childhood in Philadelphia.
Cosby also voiced some of the characters (Fat Albert, Mushmouth, and the fictionalized version of himself), and appeared in live-action segments within the show, including the educational lesson for each episode.