A trifecta of birthdays

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 trifecta of birthdays”

Funeral March of a Marionette was first heard on TV

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 “Funeral March of a Marionette was first heard on TV”

… a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind …

October 2, 1959 – The first episode of the anthology series The Twilight Zone, Where is Everybody?, premiered on this date Rod Serling thought he had come up with the term “The Twilight Zone” on his own (he liked the sound of it), but after the show aired, he found out that it is anContinue reading “… a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind …”

TV made a big leap forward

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 “TV made a big leap forward”

(Trigger warning – major Earworm ahead.)

October 2, 1983 –Welsh singer Bonnie Tyler’s single Total Eclipse Of The Heart was No. 1 on the Billboard Charts, on this date. The song, which was Tyler’s biggest hit of her career, made her the only Welsh artist to score a U.S. No. 1 hit. The song was written and produced by Jim Steinman,Continue reading “(Trigger warning – major Earworm ahead.)”

A glorious crown the year puts on …

October is the tenth month of the year and its name is therefore derived from Octo, the Latin word for eight (as the vegetables in V8 well knows.) October is often preceded by September and sometimes followed by November. There are 31 days in October, many of which are Wednesdays. (Wednesday is the fourth dayContinue reading “A glorious crown the year puts on …”