The first Academy Awards ceremony was held on May 16, 1929, and honored the best films of 1927 and 1928. Douglas Fairbanks hosted the show, which was held at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. Tickets to the event cost five bucks, and about 270 people attended the event. The presentation ceremony lasted about 15 minutes. Wings won the award for Outstanding Picture, which is now known as the award for Best Picture.
Rock pigeons clap their wings when flying. Scientist believe it’s done either for communication or courtship purposes.
Rats With Wings. A pigeon nickname.
Pigeons can fly at average speeds of up to 77.6 mph but have been recorded flying at 92.5 mph. Pigeons can fly between 600 and 700 miles in a single day, with the longest recorded flight in the 19th century taking 55 days between Africa and England and covering 7000 miles.
Despite being a successful and Tony-winning actress, Carole Shelley’s biography stresses her part as one of the Pigeon Sisters in the original Odd Couple
Actress Penny Marshall’s first major acting role was on the TV version of The Odd Couple, on which she played Oscar’s secretary, Myrna. Marshall’s brother, Garry, was the executive producer of the series, and he later created the series Laverne & Shirley, which also starred his sister.
Although many women of stage, TV and screen acting fame prefer to be referred to as “actors,” the Oscars, Emmy and Tonys all still have “Best Actress” categories.
The Academy Awards golden statuette is called an ‘Oscar’, but it’s not entirely clear how it got its nickname.
One theory is that Academy librarian Margaret Herrick said when she saw the statue that it looked like her uncle Oscar. Another theory credits actress Bette Davis, who claimed to have coined the name after her first husband, bandleader Harmon Oscar Nelson Jr.
Walt Disney first described the award as an Oscar in his 1934 acceptance speech for The Three Little Pigs. In his column about the ceremony, newspaperman Sidney Skolsky used ‘Oscar’ in print for the first time.
Culminating, championship football games are frequently called Bowl games, and it is quite clear how the Super Bowl got its name. Founder of the American Football League, Lamar Hunt, was watching his then-7-year old daughter Sharron Hunt playing with her toys at about the same time as AFL and NFL leaders were looking to name their championship bowl game. Sharron was playing with a toy called a super ball, and that’s where Lamar Hunt got the name Super Bowl.
The shadowy Federal bureau which regulates, organizes and assists superheroes in the Pixar movies The Incredibles and Incredibles 2 is the NSA - not the National Security Agency, but the National Supers Agency.
In the late 1970s, Kansas City Chiefs owner Lamar Hunt, along with his brothers Nelson and William, attempted to corner the world silver market. By late 1979, they controlled roughly one-third of the world’s silver supply, and had driven the price up dramatically; however, they had borrowed heavily in order to do so.
In early 1980, the rules on purchases of commodities were changed, and when the price of silver dropped, the Hunts faced margin calls on their loans that they could not repay. A market panic ensued (known now as “Silver Thursday”), and while the Hunts were bailed out of their debt with new loans, they were eventually fined $134 million for the affair, and were forced to declare bankruptcy.
Edit: neither the National Security Agency, nor the National Supers Agency, had anything to do with the Silver Thursday market panic.
30 years ago, Spy magazine sent “refund” checks for 1.11 to 58 rich people. The 26 who cashed those got a another check, for .64. The 13 who cashed those each got a check for .13. Two people cashed the .13 checks—Donald Trump and Jamal Khashoggi’s arms-dealer uncle Adnan Khashoggi. Uncle Adnan had a $100 million yacht, which, due to debt problems, he sold to the Sultan of Brunei, who then sold the yacht to Donald Trump.
Spy vs. Spy, a comic strip published in Mad magazine, was created by Cuban cartoonist Antonio Prohias in 1961; he continued producing it for 26 years. In a 1983 interview with the Miami Herald, Prohías reflected on the success of Spy vs. Spy, stating, “The sweetest revenge has been to turn Fidel’s accusation of me as a spy into a moneymaking venture.”
The one major American city founded by a woman, is Miami FL. In 1874, Julia Tuttle of Cleveland headed to Florida to visit her father, who lived in the area. Despite the mosquito-infested swamps, she liked what she saw. After her father died and left her his land, she purchased more acreage and then talked railroad builder Henry Flagler into extending tracks southward. In 1896 the city she had founded was incorporated; by the 1920s, it was a bustling metropolis. In 2010, a 10-foot tall statue of Julia Tuttle, the “Mother of Miami,” was erected in Miami’s Bayfront Park.
Czech-born Jan Hammer, previously the keyboardist for the Mahavishnu Orchestra, wrote the memorable theme music for “Miami Vice”, starring Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas as undercover cops Sonny Crockett and Rico Tubbs. Crockett’s wearing of Ray-Ban Wayfarer sunglasses, along with Tom Cruise’s in Risky Business, helped repopularize the retro brand.
In the summer of 1967, Rolling Stone founder Jann Wenner and Jane Schindelheim were married, but after having three sons together, they divorced in 1995.
Since 1995, Wenner’s domestic partner has been Matt Nye, a fashion designer. Together, Wenner and Nye have three adopted children, Noah and twins Jude and India Rose.
The first issue of Rolling Stone had a cover date of November 9, 1967. In the inaugural issue, co-founder Jann Wenner explained the rationale for both the name and intent of the new publication:
"You’re probably wondering what we’re trying to do. It’s hard to say: sort of a magazine and sort of a newspaper. The name of it is Rolling Stone which comes from an old saying, ‘A rolling stone gathers no moss.’
Muddy Waters used the name for a song he wrote. The Rolling Stones took their name from Muddy’s song. ‘Like a Rolling Stone’ was the title of Bob Dylan’s first rock and roll record. We have begun a new publication reflecting what we see are the changes in rock and roll and the changes related to rock and roll."
The song “Rock and Roll” by the Boswell Sisters appeared in the 1934 film Transatlantic Merry-Go-Round. In 1942, Billboard magazine columnist Maurie Orodenker started to use the term “rock-and-roll” to describe upbeat recordings such as “Rock Me” by Sister Rosetta Tharpe By 1943, the “Rock and Roll Inn” in South Merchantville, New Jersey, was established as a music venue. In 1951, Cleveland, Ohio disc jockey Alan Freed began playing and populaarzing both the music style and the phrase “rock and roll.”
The phrase “rocking and rolling,” a metaphor used by seamen to describe the motion of a ship, dates from the 17th century. By the 1920s, “rocking and rolling” became a popular double entendre referring to either dancing or sex. Trixie Smith’s 1922 blues ballad, “My Man Rocks Me (With One Steady Roll)” may be the first use of the phrase in song. Alan Freed, a disc jockey in Cleveland, Ohio used the phrase, “The Rock and Roll Session” to describe the amalgamation of rhythm and blues and country music he played during his show. (Like Annie tells us.) As his radio show gained popularity, so too did the phrase. And why is the “and” sometimes written as ‘n? That’s called an apocopation – the omission of the final sound of a word.
Apocopation: now there’s a new word for me! Wiktionary, apocopation:
Rolling Stone is an American monthly magazine that focuses on popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California in 1967. The name of the magazine referred to the 1950 blues song “Rollin’ Stone”, recorded by Muddy Waters; the rock and roll band the Rolling Stones; and Bob Dylan’s hit single “Like a Rolling Stone”:
Alan Lomax (1915–2002) was an American ethnomusicologist*, best known for his numerous field recordings of folk music of the 20th century. During his career, Lomax recorded thousands of songs and interviews for the Archive of American Folk Song, of which he was the director, at the Library of Congress.
In 1941, Lomax went to Mississippi to record various country blues musicians, one of whom was Muddy Waters. When Waters heard his voice on the recording, he realized that he could make it professionally and soon moved to Chicago to begin his career.
*A new word for me as well; from Wikipedia: