Jerry Lewis portrayed the original Nutty Professor in1963. Differences between this film and the Eddie Murphy remake include changing the titular professor from a clumsy and socially-awkward geek to a kindhearted man who is moribdly obese; making “Buddy Love” more malicious; and adding more PG-13 humor that wouldn’t have flown in the 1960s.
Bill Clinton’s chocolate Labrador Retriever, Buddy, was adopted in Dec. 1997, shortly before the President’s affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky burst into the headlines. A cartoon not long afterwards showed Clinton happily embracing the dog and saying, “Finally, a friend who can’t testify against me!”
Actor/dancer Buddy Ebsen was originally cast as the Scarecrow in the film adaptation of The Wizard of Oz, while Ray Bolger was originally cast as the Tin Man. Bolger wanted to play the Scarecrow, and Ebsen agreed to swap roles with him.
Ebsen had recorded all of his songs as the Tin Man, and had begun filming, when he became extremely ill: doctors discovered that the aluminum dust which was used in his Tin Man makeup was coating his lungs and preventing oxygen from reaching his bloodstream. MGM replaced Ebsen with Jack Haley, and used a different form of aluminum-based makeup on him; Ebsen suffered breathing problems for the rest of his life.
Bert Lahr, who played The Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz, fathered three children by his second wife. John Lahr, the middle child, grew up to become a respected senior film critic for The New Yorker magazine. John would later marry Connie Booth in 2000; Booth was previously married to John Cleese of Monty Python fame and both starred together in Fawlty Towers. Booth and Cleese divorced in 1978, and in 1995 she quit acting to study psychotherapy at the University of London. She became a registered psychotherapist with the British Psychoanalytic Council in 2000.
Per Wiki, John Cleese’s “family’s surname was originally Cheese, but his father had thought it was embarrassing and used the name Cleese when he enlisted in the Army during the First World War; he changed it officially by deed poll in 1923.”
When it comes to British cheese, cheddar is king. However, the British Isles produce a wide variety of exquisite and sought-after cheeses, including Stilton, Baron Bigod, and perhaps at the top of that list, Cornish Kern. This particular cheese is wrapped in edible nettle leaves and aged for 16 months. In 2017, at the 30th annual World Cheese Awards, a Kern took top prize.
The “Cheese Shop” sketch is a sketch from the television series Monty Python’s Flying Circus, originally airing during the show’s third series (season) in 1972.
In the sketch, John Cleese plays a customer who visits a cheese shop, seeking to buy some cheese from the shop’s proprietor, played by Michael Palin. Cleese requests variety after variety of cheese, only to be given various excuses by Palin as to why he does not have that variety available. As the sketch progresses, Cleese becomes more frustrated and agitated, and Palin’s denials become increasingly absurd; by the end of the sketch, Palin admits that his shop has no cheese at all, and he is shot and killed by Cleese.
The sketch is one of the best-known from the series, and is structurally similar to the “Dead Parrot” sketch, which also features Cleese and Palin in similar roles.
Cleese Farm, in St. Martin-by-Looe, Cornwall, is a dairy farm in southwestern England. Or at least it was, because on Google Maps it is listed as permanently closed. It is (was?) near to and between Morval and St. Martin-by-Looe in the southeast part of County Cornwall. County Cornwall is one of the Celtic nations and the homeland of the Cornish people. The county is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, Devon to the east, and the English Channel to the south. County Cornwall is actually a ceremonial county, an area of England to which lord-lieutenants are appointed. Lord-lieutenants are the monarch’s representative in an area. The current Lord Lieutenant of Cornwall since 2011 has been Colonel Sir Edward Thomas Bolitho (KCVO OBECStJ).
Novels set in Cornwall include Greenwitch, by Susan Cooper; The Shell Seekers, by Rosamunde Pilcher; and Rebecca, by Daphne du Maurier.
The port city of Penzance, setting of the 1879 Gilbert and Sullivan comic opera The Pirates of Penzance, is also in Cornwall.
“The Major-General’s Song” from The Pirates of the Penzance is a patter song; patter is derived from “Pater Noster”, or “The Lord’s Prayer” in Latin. The habit of rushing through the words as quickly as possible gave rise to the term in England.
Patter singing/speaking began with the Greeks in ancient Greek comedies as parabasis, where the audience is addressed by the chorus or chorus leader while the actors leave or have left the stage.
In Santo Domingo, you can get a delicious mango pie for about $2.25US. Similarly, in Aruba they have a delicious coconut cream pie, you can get one for about $5US if you know where to look. And in Grand Cayman Island they have a Key Lime Pie that is to die for, but it will cost you about $45 US.
And now you know the Pie Rates of the Caribbean.
“The Major-General’s Song” (technically “I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General”) from G&S’s The Pirates of the Penzance was spoofed in the September 18, 2006 series premiere of the Aaron Sorkin dramedy Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.
ETA: No Key Lime Pie is eaten in the episode, as I recall… overpriced, punny or otherwise.
“The Elements” is a song by musical humorist and mathematician Tom Lehrer, which he wrote in 1959. The song uses the melody of Gilbert and Sullivan’s “The Major-General’s Song,” and the lyrics list the names of all of the 102 chemical elements which were known at the time that Lehrer wrote the song.
Tom Lehrer was 18 years old in 1946 when he graduated from Harvard with a degree in Mathematics, magna cum laude.
1946 was Harry Truman’s first full year as President of the United States. He took office after the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt on April 12, 1945. When the late President’s wife Eleanor told him at the White House of FDR’s death, Truman asked her if there was anything he could do for her. She replied, “Is there anything we can do for you? For you are the one in trouble now!”
Harry Truman was an artillery officer in the Army.
Harry Truman’s middle initial, “S”, does not stand for a single name. Rather, it honors both his grandfathers, Anderson Shipp Truman and Solomon Young. This was a fairly common practice among southern families.
Harry S Truman is not the only notable person whose middle initial means nothing. The S in Ulysses S Grant is similarly meaningless. The K in JK Rowling is also meaningless; she has always been just Joanne Rowling, and she added started using “JK” because her publisher suggested she use two initials because reasons. Michael J Fox took on his middle initial because he couldn’t be just “Michael Fox” because another SAG actor had the same name, and he didn’t want to use his own middle initial, A, becuase he thought “Michael A Fox” didn’t read well.
Yours truly, Aaron N (which actually stands for Nicholas) [Mylastname]
Michael J Fox‘s middle name is Andrew.