Author Archives: dcaligari

July 15, 1957 – The Looney Tunes short, Tabasco Road, directed by Bob McKimson, and starring Speedy Gonzales, was released on this date. The title Tabasco Road is a pun on Tobacco Road, a 1932 novel by Erskine Caldwell.

July 15, 1946 – The Looney Tunes short, The Great Piggy Bank Robbery, directed by Bob Clampett, and starring Daffy Duck, was released on this date. When Duck Twacy takes a street car to the gangsters’ hideout, the conductor is a thinly-disguised Porky Pig dressed in a driver’s uniform and a handlebar mustache.

July 20, 1940 – The Merrie Melodies short, The Egg Collector, directed by Chuck Jones, and starring Sniffles was released on this date. Egg collecting was very popular during the Victoria era, particularly among the upper class of Britain and Europe.

July 20, 1935 – The Looney Tunes short, Buddy Steps Out, directed by Jack King, and starring Buddy, was released on this date. This is the only short that credits Chuck Jones as the animator as “Chas. Jones” instead of “Charles Jones” or “Charles M. Jones“

July 20, 1950 – Fred Zimmermann’s film about wounded WWII veterans, The Men, starring Marlon Brando (in his first feature film), Teresa Wright and Everett Sloane, opened on this date. According to Marlon Brando, this film role classified him as 1-A to the Army and he reported for induction during the Korean War. He was,Continue reading “The Men premiered”

July 20, 1990 –In one of the late (good) performances of Marlon Brando, the TriStar Pictures‘ The Freshman, directed by Andrew Bergman and co-starring Matthew Broderick, Bruno Kirby, Penelope Ann Miller, and Frank Whaley, opened on this date. Matthew Broderick had no idea that Marlon Brando was going to use the walnuts as a propContinue reading “The Freshman premiered”

July 19, 1965 –The Beatles released the single, Help (B-side I’m Down), ahead of the release of the album of the same name, on this date. The song runs just 2:18, but packs in 267 words, making it one of the most lyrically dense hits of the era. It starts and ends on a vocal,Continue reading “I need somebody”

Today is National Daiquiri Day. It’s just about the middle of the summer, so it more than appropriate to celebrate (although it might have been fun to celebrate it on July 11 – see my note on sphenopalatine ganglioneuralgia.)

July 19, 1950 –The Walt Disney adventure film, Treasure Island, directed by Byron Haskin, and starring Bobby Driscoll, Robert Newton, Basil Sydney, and Finlay Currie, was released on this date. The featured performance of Robert Newton as Long John Silver is so iconic that it is thought by many to be the origin of today’sContinue reading “Treasure Island premiered”

July 19, 1972 –The Paramount Pictures drama, The Man, directed by Joseph Sargent, (screenplay, written by Rod Serling,) and starring James Earl Jones, Martin Balsam, Burgess Meredith, Lew Ayres, William Windom, and Barbara Rush, was released on this date. James Earl Jones was interviewed about portraying a fictional black U.S. president a few days beforeContinue reading “The Man premiered”