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January 13, 1989 –British comedy sketch show series A Bit of Fry and Laurie starring Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie debuts on BBC1 on this date. Stephen Fry was never able to convincingly fake hitting someone, so often he genuinely hit Hugh Laurie while filming the sketches.

January 13, 1910 –Lee De Forest, the American inventor of the vacuum tube, demonstrates the first radio broadcast, a live performance of Cavalleria Rusticana with Enrico Caruso from the Metropolitan Opera, on this date. The broadcast over a telephone transmitter could be heard only by the small number of electronics hobbyists who had radio receiversContinue reading “If you had a radio, you finally heard something”

Janury 13, 1968 –The Beatles’ non-album single Hello Goodbye was #1 on the Billboard charts for the third week in a row, becoming the band’s 15th American chart-topper. (It was the first single that The Beatles released after the death Brian Epstein.) John Lennon hated the song. He viewed it as an inconsequential song ofContinue reading “Hello Goodbye topped the charts”

January 13, 1967 –Decca Records released The Rolling Stones single, Let’s Spend The Night Together, (the b-side was Ruby Tuesday,) in the UK on this date, It’s pretty obvious what’s going on in this song, as Mick Jagger makes a play to bed down a lovely lady. All this talk of “satisfying her every need”Continue reading “Let’s Spend The Night Together first went on sale”

January 13, 1945 – One of the ‘banned’ World War II Looney Tunes cartoons, Herr meets Hare, first aired on this date. This cartoon marks the first appearance of Bugs’ classic “left turn at Albuquerque” joke. The cartoon was finally broadcast in its entirety in July, 2001, on a special episode of the Cartoon Network’sContinue reading “Herr meets Hare premiered”

January 12, 1992 –“… My instructor was Mr. Langley, and he taught me to sing a song. If you’d like to hear it I can sing it for you.” The HAL (Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic Computer) 9000 computer became operational in the HAL plant in Urbana, Illinois, on this date in the film, 2001, A SpaceContinue reading “The start of the A I revolution”

January 12, 1969 –Led Zeppelin‘s debut album was released in the US on this date. It was recorded over just 36 hours at Olympic Studios in Barnes, London, costing the band just £1,782. Most of the tracks were performed ‘live’ in the studio, with very few overdubs added. The groundbreaking heavy rock LP spent moreContinue reading “Good times, bad times …”

January 12, 1967 –Dragnet reappeared in color when their iconic episode The LSD Story premiered on this date. When the revival was in the planning stages, Jack Webb had originally planned on bringing in his former co-star Ben Alexander to reprise his role as Officer Frank Smith. However, Alexander was appearing on the ABC seriesContinue reading “Dragnet was back … in color”

January 12, 1955 –Kraft Television Theatre presented the first drama written by Rod Serling, Patterns on this date. The drama was so popular that it became the first live drama in television history to be broadcast twice due to popularity.

Have a cuppa. It’s a perfect day to celebrate National Hot Tea Day.