Author Archives: dcaligari

October 3, 1961 –The Dick Van Dyke Show premiered on this date. The show wasn’t an immediate success but became a hit. Carl Reiner asked network censors for permission to show Laura and Rob sleeping in one large bed together, reasoning (quite sensibly) that he and his wife did so in real life. The permissionContinue reading “The Dick Van Dyke Show premiered”

October 3, 1960 – Let grab down our fishin’ poles and head down to the fishin’ hole, The Andy Griffith Show premiered on this date. They never mention what happened to Opie’s mother. Opie was said to be just “a speck of a boy” when she died. Her first name is never given, her pictureContinue reading “The Andy Griffith Show premiered”

October 3, 1953 – The final installment of the Looney Tunes “Hunting Trilogy“, Duck! Rabbit, Duck!, premiered on this date. Bugs Bunny stuck out four signs to lead Elmer Fudd to shoot Daffy Duck. In order they are:1st GOAT SEASON OPEN;2nd, DIRTY SKUNK SEASON;3rd, PIGEON SEASON;4th and last, MONGOOSE SEASON.

Three of the past century’s finest comedians were born on October 2: Groucho Marx (1890), Bud Abbott (1895), and Mahatma Gandhi (1869). Groucho and Abbott were funny enough, but they pale beside the towering comic greatness of Gandhi. “When I despair, I remember that all through history the ways of truth and love have alwaysContinue reading “A Plethora of Birthdays”

October 2, 1925 –Scottish inventor John Logie Baird successfully transmitted the first television picture with a greyscale image: the head of a ventriloquist’s dummy nicknamed Stooky Bill on this date. (“Stooky” being slang for someone who moves woodenly and a colloquial term for the plaster cast used to immobilize bone fractures.) Almost immediately, Logie BairdContinue reading “First TV image transmitted”

October 2, 1982 –John Cougar’s (John Mellencamp) single Jack And Diane, a little ditty about two American kids growin’ up in the heartland, becomes his first and only #1 hit in America, on this date. Jack and Diane were a interracial couple in the first version of this song, inspired by the blended couples JohnContinue reading “Jack And Diane topped the charts”

October 2, 1950 –The comic strip Peanuts, created by Charles Schulz, debuted in nine newspapers with the characters of Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Patty and Sherman. It is still the most-read comic strip in the world. And yet, Charlie still hasn’t kicked that damn football. Demand Euphoria!

October 2, 1955 – Revenge, the very first story on the Alfred Hitchcock Presents show premieres on this date. The sponsors, who had great influence regarding the presentation of the show, insisted that for the episodes ending with the perpetrator “getting away with a crime,” Alfred Hitchcock provide a statement in his closing monologue thatContinue reading “Alfred Hitchcock Presents premiered”

October 2, 1959 –…a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind…. The first episode of the anthology series The Twilight Zone, Where is Everybody?, premiered on this date Rod Serling wanted Richard Egan to do the narration because of his rich, deep voice. However, due to strict studio contracts of the time,Continue reading “The Twilight Zone premiered”

October 1, 1968 –Night of the Living Dead premiered in Pittsburgh on this date. When the zombies are eating the bodies in the burnt-out truck, they were actually eating roast ham covered in chocolate sauce. The filmmakers joked that it was so nausea-inducing that it was almost a waste of time putting the makeup onContinue reading “Boo!”