Author Archives: dcaligari

August 25, 1988 – Miramax released one of the best documentary films ever produced, The Thin Blue Line, directed by Errol Morris, on this date. This film was released the very same year the National Film Registry was first established. The film was selected to be preserved at the Registry 13 years later, making itContinue reading “The Thin Blue Line premiered”

August 25, 1979 –The TV pilot movie for the series Hart to Hart, starring Robert Wagner and Stefanie Powers premiered on ABC-TV on this date. The initial choice for the role of Jonathan Hart was Cary Grant. However, Grant (who was seventy-five years old at the time) had retired from acting in 1966. Actresses consideredContinue reading “Hart to Hart premiered”

It’s the birthday of Declan Patrick MacManus, one of the most prolific musicians of the late 20th Century. In addition to recordings as “Elvis Costello” (often backed by The Attractions), he has recorded music as “Declan MacManus“, “Napoleon Dynamite and The Royal Guard“, “The Coward Brothers” (with T-Bone Burnett), “Nick Lowe and His Sound“, “TheContinue reading “Elvis Costello”

Today is National Banana Split Day, observed annually on this date. A 23-year-old apprentice pharmacist at Tassel’s Pharmacy in Latrobe, Pennsylvania created the first banana split in 1904. David Evans Strickler enjoyed inventing sundaes at the store’s soda fountain. His first “banana-based triple ice cream sundae” sold for 10 cents, double the cost of allContinue reading “Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana”

August 24, 1869 – Today is National Waffle Day. It the anniversary of Cornelius Swarthout (of Troy, New York) receiving the first U.S. patent for a stovetop Waffle Iron (U.S. patent No. 94,043).

August 24, 1979 –NBC-TV introduced the girls of Eastland School, an all-girls boarding school in Peekskill, New York, to audiences when The Facts of Life premiered on this date. The pilot Rough Housing may have been the very first children’s program on network television to discuss gender confusion and sexual identity crises among youth; asContinue reading “Taking the good, for the very first time”

August 24, 1937 –William Wyler’s crime-drama film, Dead End, opened in NYC on this date. William Wyler originally wanted to film on location on the streets of New York, but producer Samuel Goldwyn insisted that the movie be made in the studio. Art director Richard Day was assigned to design the sets and made oneContinue reading “Dead End premiered”

August 24, 1977 – The third in a series of films based on the Peanuts comic strip, Race For You Life, Charlie Brown, directed by Bill Melendez and Phil Roman, and voiced by Duncan Watson, Stuart Brotman, Gail Davis, Liam Martin, and Melanie Kohn, opened on this date. This is the only theatrical Peanuts filmContinue reading “Race For You Life, Charlie Brown premiered”

August 24, 1985 –Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers’ single, Real Love went to No. 1 on the Billboard country singles chart on this date. The song, the title track from Parton’s latest album, was Parton and Rogers’ second country chart-topper as a duet act.

August 24, 1967 –Encouraged by Pattie Harrison, The Beatles and their partners – minus Ringo and Maureen Starkey, whose second child, Jason, had been born just five days earlier -attended a lecture by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi at the Hilton Hotel on Park Lane, London, on this date. This was a highly creative period for TheContinue reading “Some lectures you just shouldn’t attend”