Bob & Ray’s act was partly inspired by the 1930’s radio comedy team of Stoopnagle & Budd. Though now largely forgotten, they’re considered by many to have been the first radio satirists.
Comedic writer for the original Saturday Night Live Rosie Shuster is the daughter Frank Shuster, a comedian of Wayne and Shuster fame. She is a cousin of Superman co-creator, Joe Shuster.and was married to the show’s creator, Lorne Michaels from 1971 to 1980 before leaving him for Dan Ackroyd.
During OJ Simpson’s famous flight in a white Ford Bronco, a Howard Stern fan putting on a laughably phony black accent called ABC News, and got on the air with Peter Jennings, pretending to be an eyewitness.
Monday Night Football sportscaster Al Michaels recognized the caller’s allusions to Stern and his sidekick Gary “Bababooey” Dell’abate, and gently notified Jennings that the call was a prank.
At the 1993 Vice Presidential Inaugural Ball, Al and Tipper Gore welcomed Paul Simon, who performed his hit “You Can Call Me Al.”
The first unassisted triple play in major league baseball was achieved by Cleveland by shortstop Neal Ball on July 19, 1909. With runners on first and second, Ball caught a line drive, stepped on second to double off the runner, and tagged the runner from first who had continued to second as part of a hit-and-run play. The other players on the field were unsure about what had happened and Cy Young asked Ball why he was leaving the field, not realizing the inning was over.
The Duchess of Richmond’s Ball on June 15, 1815, in Brussels, has been called one of the most famous balls in history. The cream of the British and allied society and military attended it, and the entertainment included Scottish dancing by some of soldiers from the Highland regiments. It was at the ball that the Duke of Wellington got the news that Napoleon had crossed the boundary into Belgium. The Duke looked at a map and said, “I shall fight him there,” pointing at Waterloo.
Years later, at a different social event, French ambassadors turned their backs on the Duke of Wellington. Asked if he was offended, he said, “I have seen their backs before.”
Jeremy Clyde, half of the musical duo Chad & Jeremy, is a nephew of the present 8th Duke of Wellington, Arthur Valerian Wellesley.
Zing!
The Duke of Wellington also allegedly said, when asked if the fact that he was born in Dublin made him an Irishman, “Being born in a stable does not make one a horse.”
Dublin is an English version of the Gaelic name, derived from “dubh” (black) and “linn” (pool).
The Blackpool Illuminations, in the seaside Lancashire resort town that also hosts the Blackpool Tower, is an annual festival of electric lighting, dating even from before the invention of the incandescent light bulb.
There are 500 holes in Blackburn, Lancashire. And though the holes are rather small, someone had to count them all. It is believed that number of holes would fill the Albert Hall.
(Copied straight from Wikipedia)
Blackburn is mentioned in the Beatles’ song “A Day in the Life”. An article in the Daily Mail about a plan to fill potholes in the town caught John Lennon’s eye as he was writing the song, giving birth to the lyric
“I read the news today, oh boy
4,000 holes in Blackburn, Lancashire
And though the holes were rather small
They had to count them all
Now they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall.”
In 1981, the Daily Mail ran an investigation into the Unification Church, nicknamed the Moonies, and branded them “the church that breaks up families” in the article, which accused them of brainwashing converts. The Unification Church, which always denied brainwashing, sued for libel and lost heavily. A jury awarded the Mail a record-breaking £750,000—then the biggest libel payout. In 1983 the paper won a special British Press Award for a “relentless campaign against the malignant practices of the Unification Church.”
A partial penumbral eclipse of the Moon on 25 May 2013 was the first in the new Lunar Saros #150, which is a series of 71 lunar eclipses approximately every 18 years 11 days and ending in the year 3275 A.D.
The Denny’s restaurant chain is noted, among other things, for its Moons Over My Hammy breakfast plate, consisting of: Ham and scrambled egg sandwich with Swiss and American cheeses on grilled sourdough, served with choice of hash browns or grits.
The British actor Reginald Denny – his final acting role was Commodore Schmidlapp in the Batman TV series – was a founder of Radioplane, maker of military target drones. (He had opened a hobby shop on Hollywood Blvd. in 1934 specializing in radio- or remote-controlled model planes.) In 1940, Denny and his partners won a US Army contract for their remote-controlled target drone, the OQ-2 Radioplane. They manufactured nearly 15,000 drones for the US Army during World War II. The company was purchased by Northrop in 1952. Marilyn Monroe was discovered working as an assembler at Radioplane. A photographer assigned by Denny’s friend, Army publicist – and future President – Capt. Ronald Reagan took several shots and persuaded her to work as a model, which was the beginning of her career.
Ronald Reagan, Republican of California, is the only divorced person to be elected President of the United States.
Ronald Reagan was the first Cold War president to preside over eight years of unbroken peace.
Ronald Dworkin, one of the most influential legal philosophers of the past century, died earlier thus year. One of his most important contributions was his critique of Hart’s theory of legal positivism.