Monthly Archives: September 2013

Anniversary of The Flintstones

The Flintstones

The Flintstones is an animated American television sitcom that ran from September 30, 1960 to April 1, 1966 on ABC. Produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions, The Flintstones is about a working class Stone Age man’s life with his family and his next door neighbor and best friend. It has since been re-released on both DVD and VHS.

Critics and fans alike agree that the show was an animated imitation of The Honeymooners with rock puns thrown in. William Hanna admitted that “At that time “The Honeymooners” was the most popular show on the air, and for my bill, it was the funniest show on the air. The characters, I thought, were terrific. Now, that influenced greatly what we did with “The Flintstones”… “The Honeymooners” was there, and we used that as a kind of basis for the concept.” However Joseph Barbera disavowed these claims in a separate interview, stating that “I don’t remember mentioning “The Honeymooners” when I sold the show, but if people want to compare “The Flintstones” to “The Honeymooners,” then great. It’s a total compliment. “The Honeymooners” was one of the greatest shows ever written.” Its popularity rested heavily on its juxtaposition of modern-day concerns in the Stone Age setting

Ruffles Maxx

Flame Grilled Steak Ruffles!

Spots

Leopard Changing Spots

Owl Hoo

Owl Hoo

Abbey Road

Minecraft Abbey Road

Minecraft Abbey Road

Beatles Abbey Road

Beatles Abbey Road

RIP Paul Newman

Paul Newman

Paul Leonard Newman (January 26, 1925 – September 26, 2008)

Paul Newman was an American actor, film director, entrepreneur, humanitarian and auto racing enthusiast. He won numerous awards, including an Academy Award, three Golden Globe Awards, a BAFTA Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, a Cannes Film Festival Award, an Emmy award, and many honorary awards. He also won several national championships as a driver in Sports Car Club of America road racing and his race teams won several championships in open wheel IndyCar racing.

Newman was a co-founder of Newman’s Own, a food company from which Newman donated all post-tax profits and royalties to charity. As of July 2011, these donations had exceeded US $300 million.

On September 26, 2008, Newman died at his longtime home in Westport, Connecticut, of complications arising from lung cancer.

How many tickles

How many tickles

Happy Birthday, Jim Henson

James Maury Henson (September 24, 1936 – May 16, 1990) was the most widely known American puppeteer in modern American television history.

He was the creator of The Muppets and the leading force behind their long creative run. Henson brought an engaging cast of characters, innovative ideas, and a sense of timing and humor to millions of people. He is also widely acknowledged for the ongoing vision of faith, friendship, magic, and love which was infused in nearly all of his work.

Jim Henson StatueStatue of Jim Henson and Kermit the Frog, on display outside of Adele H. Stamp Student Union in College Park, Maryland.
Wikipedia Link

RIP Dr. Seuss

Dr. Theodor Seuss Geisel (March 2, 1904 – September 24, 1991), better known by his pen name, Dr. Seuss, was a famous American writer and cartoonist best known for his children’s books, particularly The Cat in the Hat. He also wrote under the pen names Theo. LeSieg and Rosetta Stone.

Seuss Stamp

Postage stamp honoring Dr. Seuss and depicting him along with several of his creations, such as The Cat in the Hat and The Grinch (courtesy of the United States Postal Service).

Seuss Google Doodle

Google’s 2009 Tribute to Dr. Seuss

Anniversary of The Jetsons

Jetsons

On this day in 1962, the Jetsons premiered on ABC.

The Jetsons is a prime-time animated American sitcom that was produced by Hanna-Barbera, originally airing from 1962–63 and again from 1985–87. It was Hanna-Barbera’s Space Age counterpart to The Flintstones, a half-hour family sitcom projecting contemporary American culture and lifestyle into another time period. While the Flintstones live in a world with machines powered by birds and dinosaurs, the Jetsons live in a futuristic utopia in the year 2062 of elaborate robotic contraptions, aliens, holograms, and whimsical inventions.

The original incarnation of the series aired Sunday nights on ABC from September 23, 1962, to March 3, 1963. It comprised 24 episodes, and was re-run on Saturday morning for decades. At the time of its debut, it was the first program ever to be broadcast in color on ABC-TV (as The Flintstones, while always produced in color, was broadcast in black-and-white for its first two seasons). Its continuing popularity led to further episodes being produced for syndication between 1985 and 1987.

 Wikipedia Link

RIP George C. Scott

George C. Scott

George Campbell Scott (October 18, 1927 – September 22, 1999)

 

George Campbell Scott was an American stage and film actor, director and producer. He was best known for his stage work, as well as his portrayal of General George S. Patton in the film Patton, as General Buck Turgidson in Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove, and as Ebenezer Scrooge in a television adaptation of A Christmas Carol.

Wikipedia Link

Happy Birthday, H.G. Wells

H. G. Wells was a British writer best known for his science fiction novels such as The War of the Worlds, The Invisible Man, The Island of Doctor Moreau and The Time Machine. He was a prolific writer in the history of literature, and wrote works in nearly every genre, including short stories and nonfiction. He was an outspoken socialist, and most of his works contain some notable political or social commentary.

HG Wells

Herbert George Wells (September 21, 1866 – August 13, 1946)

Happy Birthday, “The Hobbit”

“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.”

The Hobbit is a novel written by J. R. R. Tolkien in the tradition of the fairy tale. It was first published on September 21, 1937. While it also stands in its own right, it is often seen as a prelude to Tolkien’s monumental fantasy novel The Lord of the Rings (published in 1954 and 1955).

The story, subtitled There and Back Again, follows the adventures of the hobbit Bilbo Baggins as he travels across the lands of Middle-earth with a band of dwarves and a wizard named Gandalf on a quest to restore a dwarven kingdom and a great treasure stolen by the dragon, Smaug.

Happy Birthday, Chuck Jones

Charles Martin “Chuck” Jones (September 21, 1912 – February 22, 2002) was an American animator, cartoon artist, screenwriter, producer, and director of animated films, most memorably of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies shorts for the Warner Brothers cartoon studio.

In 1966, he produced and directed the TV special How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

He directed the Rudyard Kipling book adaptation of “Rikki-Tikki-Tavi“, which was released on January 9, 1975.

He would have been 100 years old this year!

RIP Jim Croce

Jim Croce

James Joseph “Jim” Croce (January 10, 1943 – September 20, 1973)

James Joseph “Jim” Croce (“crow-chee”) was an American singer-songwriter. Between 1966 and 1973, Croce released six studio albums and 11 singles. His singles “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown” and “Time in a Bottle” were both number one hits on the Billboard Hot 100 charts.

Croce, 30, Maury Muehleisen, 24, and four others died in a small commercial plane crash on September 20, 1973 after leaving a concert.

Wikipedia Link

Happy Birthday, Batman

 

Adam West (Batman)

William West Anderson (born September 19, 1928), better known by the stage name Adam West,

is an American actor best known for his lead role in the Batman TV series (1966–1968) and the film of the same name.

Happy Birthday, Emoticon :-)

emoticon smile

An emoticon is a facial expression pictorially represented by punctuation and letters, usually to express a writer’s mood. Emoticons are often used to alert a responder to the tenor or temper of a statement, and can change and improve interpretation of plain text. The word is a portmanteau word of the English words emotion and icon. In web forums, instant messengers and online games, text emoticons are often automatically replaced with small corresponding images, which came to be called emoticons as well. Certain complex character combinations can only be accomplished in a double-byte language, giving rise to especially complex forms, sometimes known by their romanized Japanese name of kaomoji.

The use of emoticons can be traced back to the 19th century, and they were commonly used in casual and/or humorous writing. Digital forms of emoticons on the Internet were included in a proposal by Scott Fahlman of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in a message on September 19, 1982.

I really do miss Kansas

I really do miss Kansas

Anniversary of the Debut of M*A*S*H

MASH

The series premiered on September 17, 1972, and ended February 28, 1983, with the finale becoming the most-watched television episode in U.S. television history.

Hot Wheels premieres

Hot Wheels

On this day in 1967, the first Hot Wheels was released.

Hot Wheels is a brand of die cast toy car, introduced by American toymaker Mattel in 1968. It was the primary competitor of Matchbox until 1996, when Mattel acquired rights to the Matchbox brand as well.