Author Archives: dcaligari

April 1, 1978 – Tonight was the last time you could play the original version of the game, ‘Hi Bob‘ because the final episode of The Bob Newhart Show aired on this date. Over the course of the series, the phrase, “Hi, Bob” was said 256 times. Howard Borden (Bill Daily) said it a totalContinue reading “The finale of The Bob Newhart Show”

April 1, 2007 –Showing her very acute sense of irony, Alanis Morissette transforms the Black Eyed Peas’ song My Humps into a mournful piano ballad for an April Fools’ Day prank. The accompanying music video debuts on YouTube on this date and became a viral sensation, garnering millions of views.

March 31, 1994 –Madonna appeared on The Late Show with David Letterman on this date. She dropped the f-bomb more than a dozen times, exchanged less- than-friendly barbs with Dave and then stubbornly refused to leave the set. This made the episode the most censored in American network television talk-show history; it also resulted inContinue reading “Oh, that wacky Madonna”

March 31, 1987 – US network television’s very first cyberpunk series, Max Headroom premiered on ABC-TV, on this date. According to the first episode, the name “Max Headroom” came about when Edison Carter was fleeing from security guards on a motorcycle, and he ran into a parking garage exit gate labeled MAX HEADROOM. While heContinue reading “20 minutes into the future”

March 31, 1957 –The original version of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella, starring Julie Andrews, aired live in color on CBS on this date (only black-and-white kinescopes exist today.) The only production of the Rodgers and Hammerstein version to be telecast while Oscar Hammerstein was still alive. He died in 1960, five years before the secondContinue reading “Impossible for a plain yellow pumpkin to become a golden carriage.”

Crayola Crayons have been around for 121 years. The Crayola brand was born in 1903 when cousins Edwin Binney and C. Harold Smith released the their first crayon box with its eight-count box that was sold for only a nickel. March 31 marks National Crayon Day. The average child will go through hundreds of crayonsContinue reading “For those not celebrating Easter”

Happy Easter everybody! We’ve spoken about Ishtar before: there is an ancient story about Tammuz (also known as Attis, Osiris, Dionysus, Adonis, Orpheus or Jesus – you’ll get the idea) who was born of a virgin, died, was reborn. He was the lover of Ishtar. The festival associated with Tammuz began as a day ofContinue reading “Every day is a renewal, every morning the daily miracle.”

March 30, 1909 –…The city seen from the Queensboro Bridge, is always the city seen for the first time, in its first wild promise of all the mystery and the beauty in the world…. – F Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby The Queensboro Bridge (originally known as Blackwell’s Island Bridge, affectionately known as the 59thContinue reading “The Blackwell’s Island Bridge opened”

March 30, 1979 –Norah Jones was born in New York City, on this date. Her father is the Indian sitar player Ravi Shankar, but Norah never lives with him. Raised by her mom, the concert promoter Sue Jones, she grows up in Texas before venturing back to New York to pursue music in 1999.

March 30, 1967 –The Beatles visited Michael Cooper’s London photographic studio on this date and shot the most iconic album cover ever created. The cover of Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was designed by Peter Blake and put together by Peter Blake and Jann Haworth, who painstakingly combed through hundreds of photos for monthsContinue reading “It was 57 years ago today …”