Author Archives: dcaligari

June 19, 1976 –The original emo boy, Eric Carmen’s single Never Gonna’ Fall in Love Again went to the top of The Billboard Charts on this date. Once again, Carmen uses (steals) a piece of classical music – this time, the melody line from Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 2 for this song. It comes from theContinue reading “Never Gonna’ Fall in Love Again topped the charts”

June 19, 1954 – The Tasmanian Devil, Taz, made his debut in the Looney Tunes cartoon, Devil May Hare, on this date. While Robert McKimson and his team were discussing new adversaries for Bugs Bunny, animator Sid Marcus suggested offhandedly that they have used everything except a Tasmanian devil. They looked the animal up inContinue reading “Devil May Hare premiered”

June 19, 1963 –Columbia Pictures releases the Ray Harryhausen fantasy film Jason and the Argonauts, directed by Don Chaffey in the U.S. on this date. In order to capitalize on the success of The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, Ray Harryhausen originally conceived of the film as Sinbad in the Age of Muses. The story wouldContinue reading “Jason and the Argonauts premiered”

June 19, 1976 –HBO launched the series, Standing Room Only (SRO) with a taped special by Bette Midler on this date. The original HBO presentation was shown “complete and uncut, minus any editing or interruption” (per the June 1976 HBO On Air guide), lasting nearly two-and-a-half hours. When it was shown on broadcast television laterContinue reading “Bette Midler Show Live at Last premiered”

June 19, 1934 –The Federal Communications Commission, perhaps the most wicked body of do-gooders ever to exist in the United States, was created. These are the clowns that perfected the fine art of capricious and arbitrary.

Can you hear those glasses chilling? We might never know how utterly charming, brilliant and entertaining we are were it not for martinis. I’m not talking a cup of cheap gin splashed over an ice cube. I’m talking satin, fire and ice; Fred Astaire in a glass; surgical cleanliness, insight.. comfort; redemption and absolution. I’mContinue reading “I will be celebrating all day”

June 19 –It is a great art to saunter – Henry David Thoreau Today is known as World Sauntering Day, sometimes referred to as International Sautering Day. Created by W.T. Rabe in response to the jogging craze; it was his thought that the day would be a reminder to slow down.

June 18, 1977 –Fleetwood Mac’s third single from their album Rumours, Dreams, hit the no. 1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100. Dreams sold more than one million copies and was the band’s only No. 1 hit. Stevie Nicks recalled to The Daily Mail October 16, 2009: “I remember the night I wrote ‘Dreams.’ IContinue reading “Dreams topped the charts”

June 18, 1948 – Goodbye to our old 78’s A CBS employee named Edward Wallerstein walked into a room at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York with Goddard Lieberson, the president of Columbia Records and publicly unveiled its new long-playing phonograph record, the 33 1/3, on this date. Unlike the standard 10-inch 78 rpm record,Continue reading “Just take those old records off the shelf”

June 18, 1969 –Sam Peckinpah’s violent western elegy, The Wild Bunch, premiered on this date. Robert Ryan’s incessant complaints about not receiving top billing so annoyed director Sam Peckinpah that he decided to “punish” Ryan. In the opening credits, after freezing the screen on closeups of William Holden’s and Ernest Borgnine’s faces while listing them,Continue reading “The Wild Bunch premiered”