Today in History: Birthday Edition

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

At 6:37 p.m. EST on this date in 1968, I arrived. (Thank you, mom.) At that hour, I was a little late for dinner, which soon became a habit I cultivated through my teen years. Gary Sheffield, Owen Wilson, quite a few others, and I turn 48 today.

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Steamboat Willie, an animated short film by Walt Disney Animation Studios, premiered at Universal’s Colony Theater (now The Broadway Theatre) in New York City on this date in 1928.

It was Disney’s first animated short that featured fully synchronized sound, so it was an enormous success, and it also introduced two new characters: Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse. Both Mickey and Minnie are 88 today. The film (after the jump):
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Peter Cook: An Appreciation

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

John Cleese has said that for him it often took hours of “grinding” work to write several minutes of comedy, but that Peter Cook could write three minutes of top-quality material in just over three minutes. It appeared to come to him that easily early in his career.

But Cook did work hard. As a writer and performer, Cook worked hard at avoiding politeness for politeness’ sake if a laugh was available instead. When the Prime Minister of England, Harold Macmillan, wanted to attend a performance of the hot new West End show, Beyond the Fringe, either no one told him that one part of the show was the performance of a monologue by Peter Cook as Macmillan and that Cook made Macmillan sound like a sluggish dolt, or it was expected that Cook would simply skip that section of the performance in deference to the nation’s leader. He didn’t.

In the monologue, Cook’s Prime Minister Macmillan reports on a visit with President Kennedy: “We talked of many things, including Great Britain’s position in the world as some kind of honest broker. I agreed with him when he said no nation could be more honest, and he agreed with me when I said no nation could be broker.”
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Today in History: Nov. 17

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

The “Heidi Game” was played on this date in 1968.

A late afternoon football game, New York Jets at Oakland Raiders, was on NBC. That network had been advertising the television debut of a new TV movie, Heidi, based on the children’s story, all week. It was an expensive movie, with one sponsor, Timex, footing the entire bill. A football game with interested viewers on both coasts was a great venue for advertising the movie.

The announcements about the movie continued all game long. But so did the game. At 7:00 p.m. EST, with the Jets in the lead 32-29 and very little time left on the clock, NBC started the broadcast of the movie, as advertised. The game was as good as over, as far as NBC executives were concerned.
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