Jonathan Winters was one of the ensemble of comic actors who appeared in the all-star It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World. He played a mechanic who single-handedly destroyed a repair garage in his rage at being tied up.
The Moody Blues song “A Winter’s Tale” was written by Mike Batt and Tim Rice. Batt wrote the lyrics for Abbacadabra, the firt musical that used ABBA songs, while Rice would later write the lyrics for the musical Chess with Benny Anderssona nd Bjoyrn Ulvaeus of ABBA.
The song “Aba Daba Honeymoon”, about the courtship and wedding of a chimp and a monkey, presided over by the Big Baboon, was written in 1914 by Arthur Fields and Walter Donovan. The hit recording by Debbie Reynolds and Carleton Carpenter was featured in the 1950 film “Two Weeks with Love”, and in the Three Stooges’ 1959 “Have Rocket, Will Travel”.
On a 1978 episode of Laverne & Shirley, the leads performed at a talent show singing “Aba Daba Honeymoon” in chimp suits on roller skates.
(I so remember seeing this bit. And I haven’t thought of it in decades.)
Cindy Williams, who became a star with Laverne and Shirley first came to prominence in the movie American Grafitti as Ron Howard’s high school sweetheart. She also had a choice role in the movie The Conversation, where she played one of the two people who were being eavesdropped upon. She was also up for the role of Princess Leia in Star Wars
The primary antagonist of Star Wars was intended to be Grand Moff Tarkin, not Darth Vader. Peter Cushing (Tarkin) had an extensive film career, and may have been the most established actor in the film.
You think? More so than Alec Guinness?
George Lucas said in a later interview that a major inspiration for his tale of how Star Wars’s Emperor Palpatine turned to evil and seized power was the life and political career of Richard Nixon, Republican of California.
Okay, ONE of the two most established actors.
I still think Sir Alec got cheated on his part.
Johann Strauss II wrote “Emperor Waltz (Kaiser-Walzer)” in 1889 on the occasion of a state visit by Austria-Hungary’s emperor Franz Josef to Berlin, hosted by Kaiser Wilhelm II. The title was chosen to refer to each monarch, to stroke each’s vanity.
The only reigning emperor today is Akihito of Japan. His father, Hirohito, was allowed to remain on the throne of Japan by the Allied powers after World War II despite considerable evidence that Hirohito had been deeply involved in planning and approving Japan’s aggressive warfare in the Pacific.
In 1992, Chad Rowan, a Hawaii native, became the first *gaijin *(foreigner) and only American so far to reach the top rank of yokozuna in sumo wrestling. Following custom, he used a stage name, in his case “Akebono”.
In Japanese practice, a deceased emperor is referred to by the name of his reign. So Hirohito is now referred to as Tenno {emperor} Showa. (Or if I have my adjective backwards, Showa Tenno or perhaps Showa no Tenno.)
“Turning Japanese” is the most popular song released by the English band The Vapors, from their 1980 album New Clear Days, and is the song for which they’re best known. There are many theories as to exactly what the song is about.
“The vapors” was used in Victorian era as a euphemism for, among other things, flatulence, indigestion, feeling faint and menstrual cramps; since tight corsets caused major digestive and breathing problems with women “the vapors” were very common, though the term is related to the miasma theory (i.e. the theory that bad health is caused by polluted air).
An American heavy metal band known as The Black Dahlia Murder released the album Miasma in 2005.
(I need a fainting couch for when I get the vapors)
Malaria, from mala aria, medieval Italian for “bad air”, got its name from the once-prevalent theory that it was spread through breathing miasmas, not from mosquito bites. It still kills between one and three *million *African children each year.
The African Union succeeded the Organization of African Unity on July 9, 2002. The only country on the continent not a member is Morocco.
Humphrey Bogart won his only Oscar for his performance in The African Queen
In the movie Infamous Truman Capote (Toby Jones*) wins over the small town Kansans by telling stories about working with Humphrey Bogart, Jennifer Jones, and Peter Lorre on the set of Beat the Devil.
*In an incomparably better performance than the one Philip Seymour Hoffmann won an Oscar for
Truman Capote and Jennifer Jones also contributed to the film Terminal Station. Capote wrote at least some of the dialogue, while Jones co-starred with Montgomery Clift. Carson McCullers had originally been hired to pen the screenplay, but was fired and replaced with a series of writers. Capote was once credited with the entire screenplay, but later admitted (or at least claimed) that only two scenes were his work.