Mel Brooks is 90 today. Every day is a celebration of life for him. Marc Maron introduced his interview with Brooks with the declaration, “He won life.”

“What were you born?” asked David Susskind of Brooks in 1970. Brooks replied, “George M. Cohan.” That quote is from Kenneth Tynan’s 1978 New Yorker magazine profile, “Frolics and Detours of a Short Hebrew Man,” which I just discovered is only available online, through the new Yorker itself, as a PDF of a photocopy.

There is little I can add to the world’s knowledge or collection of thoughts about Mel Brooks so here is a visit from the 2000 Year Old Man (after the jump):
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Dark Shadows, a daytime soap opera that seemed at first glance to resemble every other daytime soap opera on American television—except its characters featured a vampire, Barnabas Collins, and witches and werewolves and ghosts—debuted on ABC television 50 years ago today.

The character Barnabas was introduced in 1967. Jonathan Frid, who played Barnabas, spent the rest of his long life (he died in 2012 at the age of 87) in what appeared to be complete joy at getting to play such a … full-blooded? … character. Here is the clip introducing Barnabas (after the jump). The theremin music soundtrack was how one knew something spooky was afoot:
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Journalist Veronica Guerin was shot and killed 20 years ago today by a drug gang in Dublin, Ireland.

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” … [T]o save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind; to regain faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small; to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained; to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom …”—The Charter of the United Nations

Fifty of the first 51 member-states of the United Nations signed the United Nations Charter on this date in 1945. A typo that states “June 27” is scratched out of the official document with June 26 handwritten over. It is a treaty and all members are bound by all of its articles.

A recording of Sir Laurence Olivier reading the Preamble to the Charter of the United Nations, with music by Aaron Copland (after the jump):
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