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Sunday, June 10, 2012

Get On Your Feet!


This time of month, I’m noticing that there are a lot of charity walks that are being held to raise money for various organizations.  There are walks to fund research towards finding a cure for multiple sclerosis.  There’s the annual “Relay for Life” which is held in memory of those who have lost their battle with the disease, as well as raising money to eventually find a cure.  Even my workplace has an annual walk called the “Walk for Miracles”, which benefits children’s hospitals all across Canada.  If only I weren’t scheduled to work this year, I would be doing that walk in a heartbeat.  But, I did that walk the last three years in a row, and I hope to take part in the walk again in 2013.

But, you don’t need to sign up for a charity walk in order to really enjoy the benefits of a nice walk down the street.  The weather is perfect this time of year (well, unless you’re living in the southern hemisphere) for a nice stroll down by the river, down to the park, or even just up and down the street walking your dog.  Really, I think that for most of us, we take the ability to walk for granted, and we don’t even think that we could have that ability taken away from us at a moment’s notice.  For those of us who still have the mobility, I encourage everyone to be thankful for your legs, and be grateful that they still work.  There are lots of people who would switch places with you in a heartbeat.

This is the story of how one woman was faced with the possibility of never walking again, and how through hard work and determination, she managed to overcome the challenges that were thrown her way one cold day in 1990.


This is the story of Gloria Estefan.  And the song that I have chosen for this blog entry is a song that is quite appropriate given the context of this Sunday Jukebox entry.



ARTIST:  Gloria Estefan
SONG:  Get On Your Feet
ALBUM:  Cuts Both Ways
DATE RELEASED:  September 30, 1989
PEAK POSITION ON THE BILLBOARD CHARTS: #11

This song happens to be one of my favourites by Gloria Estefan, even though it just missed hitting the Top 10 on the Billboard Charts.  It was a decent song in comparison to some of her other efforts, but she certainly had other songs that peaked higher, including a couple of chart-toppers.  But it’s a song that upon retrospect probably has a lot of significant meaning for Gloria Estefan, because just six months after this song was released, Gloria wondered if she would ever get up on her feet ever again.


The date was March 20, 1990, and Gloria Estefan and her band, the Miami Sound Machine, were right in the middle of the North American leg of her tour.  The tour was in support of Estefan’s eleventh album, “Cuts Both Ways”.  The album was memorable in a variety of different ways.  It was Estefan’s first album where she was credited as a solo artist.  Prior to the album’s release, she was credited alongside the Miami Sound Machine, the band that she had joined way back in 1977.  With the Miami Sound Machine, Estefan thrived, and as a result, the band had a slew of hit singles, including “Words Get In The Way”, “Bad Boys”, “Conga”, and “Anything For You”.

“Cuts Both Ways” was released in the middle of 1989, and immediately, the album’s first single, “Don’t Wanna Lose You” reached the top of the Billboard Charts.  It ended up becoming Gloria’s most successful albums, selling more than ten million copies worldwide.  Because the album contained songs that were recorded in English and Spanish, it became very popular in the Latino community as well (not that she needed it, as she had been a favourite of the Latino community before she hit it big anyway). 

The album’s popularity spawned the “Get On Your Feet” world tour in early 1990, and Gloria was anxious to thank her fans for all of their support.  Tagging along for the ride were Gloria’s husband, Emilio (who was a member of the Miami Sound Machine), as well as her then nine-year-old son, Nayib.  The tour, her family, her life...everything was perfect for Gloria Estefan.

Perhaps too perfect.

In an interview that she did with Mail Online (which you can read here if you like), Gloria recounted the events of March 20, 1990.  At the time, their tour bus was in the vicinity of Scranton, Pennsylvania.  Although it was snowing at the time, nobody was worried about the snow.  But Gloria had a nagging feeling that something terrible was about to happen.  She couldn’t quite explain what it was.  She just had the feeling that she had wanted her life to ‘freeze’ at the moment.

Within moments, Gloria tucked her son into bed on the tour bus, and Gloria soon fell asleep as well...only to be woken up by a terrible crash, and searing pain.


A truck had crashed directly into the tour bus, and the impact knocked Gloria onto the floor of the bus.  Upon impact, Gloria was in serious agony, and had known that she had broken her back.  What she didn’t realize was just how serious the accident really was.

Immediately after the accident, Gloria Estefan was brought to the Intensive Care Unit of Community Medical Center before being flown by helicopter to New York City, where she had two titanium rods implanted inside of her to stabilize her vertebral column.

The surgery was a rough and painful one, but it could have been a lot worse.  When the accident happened, Gloria was frantically screaming for her husband.  Emilio Estefan was trying to tell Gloria not to make any sudden movements at all until the ambulances came.  Gloria took heed of his words, which likely saved her from becoming permanently paralysed.

For the next six months, Gloria endured a painful rehabilitation.  She did everything she could to be able to walk again, and she did everything that her doctors advised her to do.  But Gloria revealed in Mail Online that her husband and son both blamed themselves for the accident.  Just before the accident, her husband had encouraged her to take a detour to New York to attend a business dinner, and the accident happened the night of the function.  As for her son, he had been playing a game just before the accident occurred.  The day that the accident happened, Nayib Estefan was jumping along the pavement, chanting the nursery rhyme “Step on a crack, break your mother’s back”, making sure to step on as many cracks as he could.  Of course, he had no way of knowing exactly what was going to happen that day, but Gloria said that he kept it secret for months afterwards, and felt terrible about it.

The aftermath of the accident also caused a lot of emotional stress to Gloria in addition to the physical trauma that she sustained.  She recalled the horror she felt when she saw the surgical scars for the first time since the accident, and she immediately broke down.  She worked so hard to create an image for her music.  She was the young, vibrant, sensuous Latina singer who lived for fun, dancing, and excitement.  It took a long time for Gloria to accept that it had happened.  While she was grateful that she was able to walk again, it took a long time for her to feel comfortable with herself again.


It was a long road to recovery, and certainly Gloria endured an incredibly rough year filled with rehabilitation.  With a little luck, and a lot of determination, along with the love and support of her family, friends, and fans, Gloria made a triumphant return to the stage on January 28, 1991...when she performed at the American Music Awards.  There’s a clip of the performance below which is dubbed in Spanish, but if you click HERE, you can watch the English version as well.


Wasn’t that something?  You could just see the joy in Gloria’s eyes as she took to the stage just ten months after an accident almost cost Gloria the ability to walk again.  Not many people end up getting a standing ovation BEFORE performing at an awards show, but Gloria earned every clap.  Her story of bouncing back from serious injury was nothing short of remarkable.

These days, Gloria is still recording music and touring again, and with each concert she performs, I imagine she never takes walking for granted again.  And in 1994, Gloria gave birth to her second child, a daughter named Emily.  The pregnancy was such that Gloria wasn’t sure if it would even happen at all.  The tour bus accident had caused one of her Fallopian tubes to shift, which prevented Gloria from getting pregnant.  But after undergoing surgery to correct the problem (as well as a series of fertility injections), Gloria fell pregnant after the second attempt.

The story of Gloria Estefan and her rise from the ashes of the tour bus accident is nothing short of fantastic.  Her sheer determination alone is something that should be celebrated.  And ultimately, Gloria ended up learning a very valuable life lesson from the accident...one that I am going to share below.

“But in spite of the accident, I felt an odd relief that it had happened so that I could learn not to take anything for granted.  I also discovered that I had a lot of discipline and patience that I didn’t know I had.”
          - Gloria Estefan, Mail Online, September 4, 2008

I can definitely relate to this.  Well, okay, maybe I still need a bit of work with the virtue of patience...but everything else seems to be something that I could use with my situation as well.  When I underwent my own surgery, the aftermath that I had was a lot like Gloria’s.  In some weird way, I’m glad that my health problems happened too because it allowed me to realize that life can change in an instant.  We always have to be prepared to face the worst, and we always have to treat every day as if it could be our last.  Gloria Estefan certainly lived, and currently lives this philosophy every day, and in the end, it has made her one of the world’s most beloved musical artists.


So, what are you waiting for?  Get on your feet!  Get up and take some action!

Saturday, June 09, 2012

Dennis the Menace


I’m sure that we all have horror stories about the grouchy people in our neighbourhoods growing up.  I certainly have my pick of past neighbours that I thought were mean.  When I was a kid, there was a neighbour that lived across the street from me who HATED kids.  At the time, I lived in a neighbourhood where there were a lot of neighbours that were over the age of sixty-five.  Her husband was a very nice man, but she always glared at me as if the demonic seed of Satan was growing inside my body.  It got to the point where I didn’t feel comfortable playing on the front porch of my house anymore...of which once I stopped, she then wondered why I never went outside.  As if it were any of her business what a nine-year-old boy did in his free time anyway.

In my case, I don’t think she liked me very much.  And, upon retrospect, I didn’t really have much love for the meddling old bat either (said with only the most sincere intentions, by the way). 

In today’s blog entry, I thought we’d take a look at a cartoon that I used to love growing up.  It was a cartoon that was based from a comic strip character that was created in 1951.  In many of the comic strips and cartoon shorts, the storyline kind of mirrored my own experiences with my childhood neighbours, but with a twist.  In both cases, there was a grouchy neighbour that was visibly annoyed by the presence of a little boy and dreaded each time he came around because it usually meant trouble.  But, unlike my situation, the title character of this comic/cartoon wanted desperately to seek his approval.  He would try to do chores for him, bring him presents, be his friend...only to be met with yelling and screaming every time.  In rare occasions, the neighbour would let down his guard and be nice to the boy...but it wasn’t often.

Oh, sure, the boy didn’t intend to cause so much trouble.  He had only the most honourable intentions in regards to his neighbour.  But, when you consider all the bad luck that befell George Wilson, you might be under the impression that the boy was a real...menace.



Yes, today’s blog subject is about Dennis the Menace, the comic strip character that has appeared in television, newspapers, and on Dairy Queen Blizzard cups for years.  In this blog entry, I’ll be focusing mostly on the cartoon series that ran for two seasons from 1986 to 1988, but before we do that, I think that it’s necessary to talk about how Dennis the Menace was created.



We have to go back sixty-two years to the year 1950 to see the moment in which Dennis the Menace was created.  At that time, a man by the name of Hank Ketcham was working as a freelance cartoonist after working as an animator for Walter Lantz and Walt Disney.  He was in his studio trying to brainstorm ideas for a new cartoon when his wife burst into the room in a huff.  When Ketcham asked what the matter was, his wife stated that their then four-year-old son was a menace because he had wrecked his bedroom instead of having a nap.

The son’s name was Dennis.  (And, ironically enough, if you read the name backwards, it would read the word SINNED.)

This inspired Hank Ketcham to create a character based on that remark.  And, with that, the blonde-haired, red overalls wearing Dennis “The Menace” Mitchell was born.



When the first Dennis the Menace comic strip was drawn in 1951, it was initially published in a handful of newspapers.  By the spring of 1953, that number grew to 193 newspapers in the United States, and an additional 52 abroad.  It was estimated that thirty million readers read Dennis the Menace in the newspaper at any given time.

Below are a couple of examples of some of these Dennis the Menace cartoons.



Ketcham continued to do the comic strip for Dennis the Menace for at least the next four decades before retiring to Carmel, California.  He passed away in June 2001.  At the time of Ketcham’s death, the comic was distributed in no less than one thousand different newspapers worldwide.  Since Ketcham’s passing, the comic strip has now been taken over by his former assistants, Ron Ferdinand and Marcus Hamilton, and can still be read in newspapers today.

However, the namesake of the iconic “Dennis the Menace” didn’t end up having as charmed of a life as the character.  The real Dennis Ketcham had a rough upbringing.  He struggled with learning disabilities, and was often neglected by his parents.  His father was too preoccupied with work to give much notice, and his mother was addicted to alcohol.  Dennis’ mother, Alice, died of a drug overdose when Dennis was twelve, and shortly after that, he was sent to a series of boarding schools in Switzerland and the United States.  When Dennis was eighteen, he joined the Marine Corps where he was stationed in Vietnam.  He returned with post-traumatic stress disorder, and eventually ended up estranged from his father as a result.  A far cry from the cartoon character if ever there was one.


TRIVIA:  Have a look at this photo of Hank and Dennis Ketcham, and compare it to the cartoon depictions of Dennis Mitchell and his father.  Notice the similarity?

Oh, and Dennis’ mother was named Alice after the real life mother of Dennis Ketcham.

Certainly a lot of people’s first impressions of Dennis the Menace came from the comic strips and books.  And, some even watched the classic live-action television show that aired in the late 1950s, starring Jay North as Dennis.  And, there was also the live-action 1993 film which starred Mason Gamble, Walter Matthau, and Christopher Lloyd that entertained a new generation of children.


However, my first introduction to Dennis the Menace was the television cartoon.  If you click HERE, you can watch a partial episode of the show, just to see what it was like.  Go ahead and watch it.  I can wait.  While you watch, I’ll offer you some trivia about the voice cast.  The voice of Mr. Wilson and Dennis’ father was performed by two actors.  One was the late Phil Hartman, and the other one was Maurice LaMarche, who would later go on to work on Pinky and the Brain.  As for Dennis, he was voiced by then eleven-year-old Brennan Thicke.  And if that last name sounds familiar, it’s because he happens to be the son of Growing Pains star Alan Thicke, and brother of singer Robin Thicke.

The cartoon debuted on September 22, 1986 in syndication, and it incorporated every single character that appeared in the comic strip into the cartoon show.  There was Dennis, of course, as well as his parents Alice and Henry, and his beloved white dog, Ruff.  We also got to meet Dennis’ friends from school.  Most episodes usually featured Dennis’ best friend, Joey McDonald, or Dennis’ nemesis, Margaret Wade.  But, sometimes you’d have appearances from some of Dennis’ other friends, such as Gina, PeeBee, Tommy, or Jay.  It was very rare that all of these kids appeared in the same episode, but whenever they did, it was guaranteed that Dennis would naturally cause the most trouble.  It didn’t matter whether it was intentional or not.  If Dennis Mitchell was there, you knew that something bad was going to go down.

And, there were lots of situations that Dennis and his friends got caught up in.  Whether it was rescuing a frog from a French restaurant, trying to find the fabled Loch Ness Monster, or even going up into outer space, Dennis often found himself in every situation possible.

But most of Dennis’ mischief ended up targeting one person the most.  And that person was the Mitchell’s neighbour, Mr. George Wilson.  Poor Mr. Wilson was always at the losing end of Dennis’ mischievous nature.  During the course of the cartoon, Mr. Wilson ended up having his house sink into the ground, having his house uprooted and towed away by a moving company, ended up getting attacked by a gorilla, and other crazy situations.  But, of course, this was nothing new, as the comic strip also depicted Dennis always causing trouble for Mr. Wilson.


The thing was that Dennis’ actions were never meant to be malicious or mean.  Dennis truly believed that he was helping Mr. Wilson by offering to do things for him.  Granted, the way that Dennis ended up “helping” Mr. Wilson ended up being counter-productive, but he was a little kid.  How could he have known?  If Mr. Wilson could have seen that all Dennis wanted to do was be his friend, then maybe Mr. Wilson could have showed more patience with the little guy.

And, here’s something else.  Remember how in my situation with my own nasty neighbour, I said that her husband was a great guy?  In Dennis’ case, Dennis could do no right with Mr. Wilson.  But Martha Wilson, George’s wife, absolutely loved Dennis very much, and would often offer a kind word for Dennis or a special treat.  In fact, in many cases, it was MARTHA who convinced Mr. Wilson to be nicer to Dennis for everybody’s sake.  After all, I think Mrs. Wilson could see that Dennis wasn’t the evil little urchin that Mr. Wilson believed Dennis was.  Mrs. Wilson could see that beneath it all beat the heart of a little boy who was very good.

Of course, the cartoon would be very boring to watch if Dennis and Mr. Wilson got along.  But, hey, you can’t blame Dennis for trying, can you?

Friday, June 08, 2012

Who's The Boss?


Last week, I talked about how I felt gender roles were diminishing in importance, and provided a couple of examples about how some broke free of their gender roles. To refresh your memory, I thought that I would repost the link HERE, so you could read what I had to say about it.

The reason why I bring this up is because today's blog entry also deals with the concept of gender roles. In fact, one could say that today's topic features a role reversal of sorts.

Back in the olden days (at least four or five decades ago), households all across North America seemed to have one rule...that the man of the household brought home the bacon, and the woman of the household stayed home to take care of domestic duties. Of course, now we live in a time in which it's almost a necessity to have two working parents in a household, and this has been commonplace since at least the 1990s. As well, there have been a steady increase in stay-at-home fathers over the last twenty years.

Back in the 1980s, however, the idea of a woman going out into the workplace while the man stayed home was a relatively new idea. And, back in those days, it was almost unheard of for a man to assume the role of housekeeper while the woman became an executive.

And that was the idea behind today's topic. A television sitcom where a former baseball player from Brooklyn, New York moves his family to Connecticut where he takes on the role of housekeeper to a female advertising executive.



The show, of course, was ABC's “Who's The Boss?”, which aired on the network for eight seasons, from September 20, 1984 to April 25, 1992. And, here's how the show came to be.



Believe it or not, the show's pilot episode was filmed almost an entire year before the show first aired, in November 1983. Initially, ABC was planning on airing the sitcom beginning in January 1984, as a mid-season replacement. Initially, the title of the show was a bit different, having the original title of “You're The Boss” (it was changed to “Who's The Boss?” just before the premiere). But, due to reported creative differences between the producers and ABC executives, the show was delayed until the beginning of the 1984/85 season.



TRIVIA: While the show was shelved before it officially premiered in September 1984, one of the stars was arrested for fighting in New York City. When the show resumed taping, Tony Danza was still doing community service as a result of this arrest.

The show began as we saw former St. Louis Cardinals second baseman, Tony Micelli (Danza) leaving his Brooklyn neighbourhood for a better life. He was forced to retire from baseball after sustaining a career-killing shoulder injury, and he needed a fresh start. He packed up all the belongings he had, and set out towards the upscale community of Fairfield, Connecticut. Tagging along was his only child, a ten year old girl named Samantha (Alyssa Milano).



MINI-CONFESSION: Alyssa Milano was my first television crush. Nothing you needed to know, just thought that I would share.

Once Tony and Samantha ended up in Connecticut, Tony tried his best to find work, but wasn't having much luck. But then fate brought him to the front door of the Bower residence, where he came face to face with Angela Bower (Judith Light), a career-driven divorced woman who worked in the field of advertising. Tony was hired as the live-in housekeeper, and he and Samantha moved into the Bower household where the shared space with Angela's 7-year-old son, Jonathan (Danny Pintauro). The cast was completed with the addition of Angela's fiesty, sex-crazed mother, Mona (Katherine Helmond).



(Speaking of Katherine Helmond, the show “Who's The Boss?” added another angle that was less than traditional. It showed an older woman who had a very active social and sex life, which was quite unusual at the time, especially when you consider that the program aired a year before “The Golden Girls”.)

The show itself was a brilliant example of showcasing the concept of role reversals, as we saw the struggles and conflict that occurred by having a woman be the main breadwinner and the man staying at home taking care of the household chores. The show also busted open the various stereotypes of Italian-Americans, as Tony Micelli was depicted as sensitive, intelligent, and domestic with a great need and desire to better himself.



On the program, Tony was depicted as easy-going and carefree, a sharp contrast from the self-controlled and serious Angela. But, despite their opposite personalities, the two of them found some common ground, and they grew much closer than even both of them realized. I'll be talking about that a little bit later.

The show also depicted a great bond between the adults and children of the show. Tony would do almost anything for his daughter, but he also ended up being a positive role model for Angela's son, Jonathan. And Samantha really appreciated having Angela as a mother figure to help her deal with the transition towards womanhood, especially since Samantha's mother had died when she was young.

The show also stayed true to Tony and Samantha's Brooklyn roots as well by having several guest stars pop in on the show. Rhoda Gemignani was a frequent guest star, taking on the role of the Micelli's former neighbour, Mrs. Rossini. And, Tony's father-in-law also made a few appearances, played by James Coco. He continued on with the recurring role until his death in 1987, in which his character's funeral was written in the show.

Here's a bit more trivia about the show, courtesy of the Internet Movie Database.

  • When the show was being cast, there was a reported 1,500 girls who auditioned for the role of Samantha Micelli.
  • Who's The Boss?” premiered on the same day as “The Cosby Show”.
  • Who's The Boss?” wasn't the only ABC program to air its final original episode on April 25, 1992. “MacGyver” and “Growing Pains” aired their finales the same night.
  • The 115th episode of the show, “Living Dolls” was meant to be a pilot episode for a new series “Living Dolls”. But, the episode was never shown until the series entered syndication. The decision to pull the 115th episode from the show's original run was due to a last-minute cast change in the cast of “Living Dolls”. Eventually, the show's 123rd episode, “Life's A Ditch”, became the second attempt for the “Living Dolls” pilot, which aired immediately after this episode.





  • In case you were wondering, by the way, “Living Dolls” only lasted one season, but kickstarted the careers of Halle Berry and Leah Remini.
  • There were plans at the end of season three for Mona to spin-off into her own series, where Mona would leave to help run a hotel, and Tony and Samantha would move into Mona's loft apartment. But when producers were worried that Mona's departure would harm the success of the program, the spin-off was cancelled.
  • Who's The Boss?” was in the Top 10 of the Neilsen ratings between 1985 and 1989.
  • At the beginning of the seventh season, a new character was added, a little boy by the name of Billy (Jonathan Halyalkar), who visited the Micellis quite often. He was written out in 1991.
  • Alyssa Milano wanted to leave the show at the end of the seventh season to go to college, but because she was still under contract, she had to stay on throughout the eighth season (which ended up being the last one).
  • In order to combat falling ratings, producers made the decision to have Tony and Angela become a couple during the show's last season. But when the ratings dipped to its lowest ever, the show was cancelled, and Tony and Angela broke up. The final scene of the series was almost identical to the first time when Angela and Tony first met, leaving the ending rather ambiguous.  Originally, the ending had both Tony and Angela getting married!
  • Reportedly during the show's final years, crew members reportedly had to deal with erratic behaviour from Tony Danza. It was rumoured that Danza had gotten disenchanted with the quality of the scripts (something Danza later confirmed as being true), and this lead to Danza walking off the set at the beginning of season six, leaving the other cast members to film scenes without him. Danza returned two weeks later, and offered an apology to the cast and crew, but some crew members wore T-shirts that read “I Survived Week Six” around set.





  • When Tony Danza briefly hosted a talk show in the mid-2000s, he hosted a "Who's The Boss?" reunion with the whole cast.


And that is our look back on “Who's The Boss?”, a program that shattered gender roles, and showed everyone that as long as everyone in the household was happy and well taken care of (as was the case in the Bower-Micelli home), does it really matter what role one takes on?

Thursday, June 07, 2012

Improving Your Sense of "Spell"


I imagine that most kids in school dreaded spelling dictations. When I was in school, every Friday was dedicated to taking a spelling test where we would be quizzed on the words that we studied all week long. If we ended up with a perfect score, we would get rewarded with a sticker. I imagine for some, a coloured sticker wasn't worth the stress of a spelling test, but I loved it.

I always took pride in having a perfect spelling paper. It wasn't until I wanted to make writing as a career goal before I understood why, but let's just get it out of the way. Knowing how to spell is crucial if one wants to have a writing career.

As a result, I admit that I may take spelling more seriously than the average person. I mean, if someone makes a spelling error in a letter or an e-mail, they chuckle, they shrug their shoulders, or they post it on Failbook or Damn You, AutoCorrect.

I, on the other hand, cringe, and it leads to my confession for today.

THURSDAY CONFESSION #23 – I am unapologetic in calling out spelling errors, especially in places where it should be unforgivable to find them.

I suppose a more derogatory term for that confession is assuming the role of a so-called “Spelling Nazi”, but I think in some cases, you almost have to be.

Don't get me wrong. There are allowances that can be made when it comes to spelling errors. If someone is texting someone in a hurry on a mobile phone (hopefully in a sitting postion that does not involve driving any sort of vehicle at the same time), then mistakes happen. If someone is jotting down a grocery list in a hurry, mistakes can happen. I'll even readily admit to making typographical errors in this very blog that I don't even know I've done until someone else points it out to me! But to my credit, I'll go back and edit my posts to fix it.

When it comes down to it, especially in this age where we have spellcheck on almost all word processing programs, and dictionaries (both online and print versions), there's really no excuse to misspell a word. None whatsoever.

I've searched the depths of the Internet to find examples of misspellings in popular culture, and let's put it this way. I wasn't disappointed. I know I said earlier that there are some instances in which spelling a word or two incorrectly is okay. But when it involves billboards, magazines, mobile phone applications, video games, and even news station graphics, one has to wonder if knowing how to spell has lost its importance in society.

Let's have a look at some of these misspellings in action, and this first example is a very recent story.

As you may know by now (unless you've been living in your underground bomb shelter preparing for the “2012 Apocalypse”), there's a Presidential election going on, and it looks like Americans have to choose between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. Naturally, both candidates have been campaigning for votes in preparation for the November election, and both have used different techniques to get the word out about what their policies and promises are.

For Mitt Romney, he felt that it would be a good idea to use a mobile phone app to promote his run for Presidency. With an app known as “With Mitt” for the iPhone, people could upload photos of themselves, and attach one of Mitt's slogans to the picture to express support for him.

So imagine people's surprise when they discovered that this was one of the slogans.



Wow. It's pretty bad when a Presidential candidate doesn't even know how to even spell the name of the country he wants to run, isn't it? I suppose it might have been forgivable if he was running for President of Kazakhstan or Djibouti, but come on...how does an American over the age of five misspell the word America?

Of course, Romney's campaign staff did some damage control as the spelling was corrected, saying things such as “it was a typo”, or “mistakes happen”. Yeah, that might be true if you were doing a fourth grade essay on the history of Amercia America. But if you're running for PRESIDENT, you make sure you know how to spell America! It's just that simple.  Granted, the mistake was probably not made by Romney himself, but he still should have looked into checking the spelling before approving it.

Of course, Romney is hardly the first American politician to be associated with a spelling boo-boo. If we go back almost 20 years to June 15, 1992, we can take a look at then Vice-President Dan Quayle's attempt at spelling the word “potato”.



It was at a spelling bee at a New Jersey elementary school, and 12-year-old student William Figueroa had just wrote the word “potato” on the blackboard. Of course, Figueroa had spelled the word correctly. Quayle, on the other hand, felt otherwise, and actually added an “E” onto the word, making it “potatoe”, which unless you add an s to the end of that word is INCORRECT.



Quayle would later claim that “Potatogate” happened because he relied too much on the written cards that the school had provided him, which he claimed also had the misspelling. Sounds like a rather weak excuse to me, but then again, I was eleven in 1992, and I already knew how to spell the word potato. And tomato, for that matter.

You know, all this talk about food is making me hungry. I think I'll go out for a walk and check and see what's available to eat.



Good grief, where do we begin with THIS one? First things first, does adding an extra “N” to donut make them taste better? Secondly, I'm pretty sure that is not the correct way to spell coffee...or, is it supposed to be cough? Either way, I don't like either with my meal, thank you. And, I'd be mighty interested in seeing how one makes a beacon, egg, and cheese on a roll. Wouldn't a beacon be mighty tough to digest? It'd probably blind you as the light spun around and around while you attempted to bite into it.

You know, forget eating right now. I think I'd rather watch a video. Oh, hold on, I forgot that I recorded programming from FOX News the night of May 1, 2011. If I remember correctly, wasn't that the day that Osama Bin Laden was killed by American troops? I believe it was. Let's have a look at a screen capture.



Wow...that's pretty bad. Even for a FOX affiliate. OBAMA Bin Laden? Now, granted, I understand that Osama and Obama are similar in spelling, with only one letter difference between the two...but when you consider that on a standard QWERTY keyboard, the B key isn't anywhere near the S key, it makes one go hmmmmm. Sure enough, some people cried BS about the mistake, and some wondered whether the mistake was intentional or not. After all, FOX News is very much pro-Republican...of which Obama is not.  I'll readily admit to not being a huge fan of FOX News myself, but to their credit, they weren't the only ones to mix up the spelling of Osama and Obama. It's still a mighty embarrassing error to make though.

I'm bored. I think I'm going to pull out a book from my comic book collection, because surely spelling mistakes NEVER happen in comic books, right?

Wrong.

You know the character Betty Cooper from Archie comics right? Blond, beautiful, and goes a little bit loco every time she spots a man with a checkerboard pattern embedded in his red hair. Did you know that she keeps a diary of all of her thoughts and feelings? In older comics, her diary entries only lasted a page, but the feature was so successful that she ended up getting her own comic book series called “Betty's Diary”, which ran from 1986-1991. Let's have a look at one of these stories.



Now, I don't know how much you know about Archie comics, but Betty Cooper's family ranged in economic stability between middle class, and just above the poverty line, depending on the story. If Betty was making her own clothes in the tale, chances were that the Cooper family didn't have a whole lot of money.  Therefore, I ask the question, when the heck did they buy their daughter an entire DAIRY FARM?!? I can see it now.

Dear Dairy, today I milked all the cows and fetched all the eggs from the chicken coops, wondering why my family couldn't just buy me a DIARY instead.”

Poor Betty. I'm so sad for her that I just want to put down the comic book and play some video games. Ah, Final Fantasy VII. A fantastic choice. It's filled with action, puzzles, and a lot of text reading. Surely, every word will be spelled correctly and USED properly, right?



Okay, I'll give FFVII some credit. The words are spelled correctly. They just aren't used properly. Aerith should have said “This guy IS sick”, or “THESE GUYS are sick”. Not “This guy are sick.” It kind of makes her sound like she's been hitting the sauce one too many times. Though, when you consider that when you first meet her, she's selling flowers in a slum after a gigantic explosion occurs and half the neighbourhood is ON FIRE BEHIND HER, clearly Aerith isn't in her right frame of mind anyway. And, this is just one of the many spelling and grammatical errors that I found within the game. Granted, when games get translated from Japanese to English, some things get lost in translation. But once you have the basic translation done, how hard is it to rewrite it for the American audience? And, don't even get me started on the fourth edition of Final “YOU SPOONY BARD” Fantasy. I would need an entire blog entry on that game alone.

The truth is that spelling errors can be found just about everywhere these days. They can be found on or near sidewalks...



...on billboards...



...and even on protest signs.



For the record, I really have no clue how to pronounce the word "ENOUNGH".


So, I guess my next question is...why do we allow it?

I can only speak for myself when I give this opinion out, but I take a sense of pride in knowing that whatever I create is spelled correctly. I just wish that more would have that attitude.

Granted, I know that people make mistakes, and the odd spelling error is fine, depending on the circumstances behind it.  I wouldn't recommend peppering a job application or a book report with spelling errors, but there's some instances where it doesn't really matter (like on a shopping list, for example).  On the other hand, I honestly feel that it is inexcusable to have incorrect spelling in huge letters on a giant billboard in the middle of Times Square. It's inexcusable to have a text-based game that is impossible to understand because of atrocious spelling. It's inexcusable to misspell the word “America” when you're a candidate to be elected the President of the whole country!

When you're typing up something for a business presentation, a job application, or anything, really, it doesn't take more than a few minutes to read and re-read the entire document and fix up any errors that you might not know you made. After I finish typing this entry out, I plan on doing exactly that. After all, we all owe it to ourselves to present the best possible impression to other people that we can. And for me, that includes correct spelling.



I'm including a link to this post HERE. It's a list of some of the more common spelling mistakes that all of us have made at some point. I only included this one because of the snark and hilarity associated with it. Take a look at it though, it is a great resource.

After all, spelling is important. And if you don't make sure that it is correct, it could impact your life in a big way.



On that note, good day all, and write it right!

Wednesday, June 06, 2012

Who Licked The Play-Doh?


Some of my favourite toys in the whole world involved ones where I could maximize my potential for creativity.

I know I’ve talked about how in my childhood, I would more often than not ignore the toys in my toy box to scribble in a colouring book or notepad with Crayola crayons, but the truth is that there were dozens of other toys that would allow me to get creative as well.  Certainly, with dozens of alphabet blocks and Legos, I could design a minuaturized version of New York City.  With a Spirograph, I could make as many hypnotic designs as I wanted.  In fact, I think I remember wanting desks for my Fisher-Price school house play set, and I made them out of pieces from my Jenga game. 

Yes, I was definitely one resourceful child.

One thing I will say about the toys of this century is that children have dozens more options for creativity than I had as a child.  They have coloured bubble blowing liquids, sidewalk chalk in every colour, and lots of other knick-knacks.  But there is one thing that I see children playing with that I used to love as a kid.  And this one thing was such that it almost became a sort of rite of passage to lick this substance at least once as a child.

Mind you, the stuff tasted extremely salty and disgusting, but when it came in every colour under the sun, you couldn’t help it sometimes.


Admit it.  You licked Play-Doh as a child, didn’t you?  I’ll come clean.  I did.  I even remember the colour I sampled too.  If memory served me, I was under the impression that the red Play-Doh tasted like Hawaiian Punch. 

Long story short, it didn’t.

However, I remember loving Play-Doh, and Play-Doh related products.  I can’t even begin to tell you how many Play-Doh play sets I owned in my youth.  A little bit later in this blog, I’ll be talking about what some of my favourite Play-Doh sets were.  Maybe it will help jog your memory a bit.


For now though, did you ever wonder how Play-Doh came to be invented?  It’s an interesting story. 

The substance known as Play-Doh was invented by a man named Noah McVicker.  At the time, McVicker worked for the Cincinnati based Kutol Products, a factory which specialized in the manufacturing of soap.  One of the company’s clients was Kroger Grocery, which asked the company to make a substance that could clean coal residue from wallpaper.  But, after World War II, many homes transitioned from coal-based heating to natural gas heating, and vinyl based washable wallpaper soon became available in the marketplace.  As a result, the need for cleaning solutions for wallpaper decreased, and Kutol Products faced bankruptcy.  It seemed as though the company would go bust.

That is until a relative of McVicker saw another use for the wallpaper paste, and used this to market the product a different way.

Noah McVicker’s nephew, Joseph McVicker, joined Kutol with the goal of attempting to save the company from filing for bankruptcy.  While he was working there, he soon discovered that the wallpaper paste that his uncle had developed was being used by nursery school children. 

No, the nursery school children weren’t learning how to wallpaper a room in between their ABC’s and 123’s.  But they were using the paste to create Christmas ornaments for their loved ones.  And this gave Joseph McVicker a rather clever idea.  He took a sample of the paste to a convention for school supply manufacturers, and while he was there, a Washington DC department store, Woodward & Lothrop, decided to start selling the product in their store as a craft item.

In 1956, seeing how successful the product was doing at the store, the McVicker family decided to start their own company, a venture known as the Rainbow Crafts Company.  It was here that they would start manufacturing and making the product that they would later give the name “Play-Doh”.

The company started off small.  Initially, their only products were a 3-pack of the standard 7-ounce cardboard canisters in the standard colours of blue, red, and yellow, as well as individual cans of the original off-white colour.  But within the year, Play-Doh would garner such buzz that Macy’s and Marshall Field’s would open up retail accounts with the company as well.  One year after Play-Doh began to be sold in stores, a chemist by the name of Dr. Tien Liu improved on the formula of the original compound.  By reducing the salt content inside the dough, he made the dough retain its bright colour as it dried.

As the company continued to grow, more colours were added to the Play-Doh collection, and the history of the company can best be explained with this timeline, courtesy of the history section of the official Play-Doh website.

1957 – Play-Doh begins manufacturing the blue/red/yellow 3-pack, and early advertising campaigns included Captain Kangaroo, and characters from Romper Room.

1958 – The 4-pack Play-Doh set, which added white Play-Doh to the blue/red/yellow 3-pack is debuted at American Toy Fairs.


1960 – Play-Doh Pete debuts as the official Play-Doh mascot; New 2-ounce mini-cans begin appearing on store shelves, as well as the first edition of the Play-Doh Fun Factory.

1964 – The year that Play-Doh expands outside of the United States, with the cans being sold in England, France, and Italy.

1971 – Rainbow Crafts Company merges with Kenner Toys.

1972 – The 500 MILLIONTH can of Play-Doh is manufactured.


1983 – After nearly thirty years, four brand new colours (orange, black, green, and purple) are invented and sold with the four pre-existing colours as an 8-can Rainbow Pack.  (FUN FACT:  The Rainbow Pack was my first introduction to Play-Doh!).  In later years, it would expand into a 10-pack with the addition of brown and pink.

1986 – The cardboard canisters are replaced with plastic cans to prevent the product from drying out prematurely.

1987 – Tonka Corporation purchases Kenner Toys and Rainbow Crafts Company, acquiring rights to Play-Doh manufacturing.

1991 – Hasbro purchases Play-Doh after acquiring Tonka Corporation.

1996 – To celebrate Play-Doh’s 40th anniversary, Play-Doh releases an educational CD-Rom game for schoolchildren called Play-Doh Creations.  As well, gold and silver Play-Doh is manufactured.

Today, Play-Doh can be found in dozens of colours and playsets.  In 2006, for the company’s 50th anniversary, they released a huge bucket of Play-Doh filled with 50 different colours of it!  And of course, there are lots of ways to play with Play-Doh.  If you were like me, you were incredibly creative with it.  You would build sculptures, you’d blend colours together, and the possibilities would be endless.

And that was without the play-sets.  Could you imagine how much fun the Play-Doh was when you used a play-set?  As I said before, there were dozens of play-sets that I played with as a child, both at home, and in my various elementary school classrooms.  But which sets were my favourites?  I’ll list them below.


THE FUZZY PUMPER BARBER AND BEAUTY SHOP

When I think of one play-set that best describes all the fun that I had with Play-Doh, it has to be this one.  Anyone who is my age or older knows how this one worked.  You would pump the Play-Doh through the little holes on each of the plastic figures and watch as they all grew hair.  Then, you’d take the tools that came with the kit (safety scissors), and shave and cut their hair.  It was such basic mechanisms, and yet you could use the Fuzzy Pumper Barber and Beauty Shop to create thousands of different looks.  I wonder how many hairstylists and barbers out there played with one of these.


THE PLAY-DOH FUN FACTORY

It was the very first playset to be offered, as well as the most basic.  And, yet, it was also the playset that millions of children loved to play with.  I know that I owned one in my childhood, and I loved it.  I don’t know what I liked making more...the spaghetti or the shooting stars.  It didn’t really matter.  I enjoyed it regardless of what I was making.


THE PLAY-DOH BURGER KING WHOPPER MAKER

I received this play-set for my 8th birthday, and I immediately fell in love with it.  The playset allowed one to make Whoppers, milkshakes, and onion rings.  And the best part was that you couldn’t eat your creations because they were too disgusting!  Mind you, every time I played with it, I craved Burger King.  The Whopper maker was fun though.  The only thing I didn’t care for was the fact that the set only came with three colours.  Yellow, Red, and Green.  You had to blend the colours together to get the right shade of brown for the burger patties and buns.  I wasn’t very good at mixing colours, so as a result, my burger patties always looked as if they could kill someone with a lethal dose of E.coli bacteria.  Oh, well.


PLAY-DOH TREAT WITHOUT THE SWEET VALENTINE’S BAG

Okay, I never played with this as a kid, but I LOVE the idea!  As someone who admittedly has mixed feelings about Valentine’s Day because of the commercialism, I have to admit that if I were still in grade school, I would give these out in a heartbeat!  Each bag contains twenty miniature cans of Play-Doh in red, white, and pink, as well as individual labels to write the name of your Valentine on each can.  I for one would have loved to have gotten a can of red or pink Play-Doh at a Valentine’s Day classroom party.  To me, that would mean that the girl who gave it to me wanted to go steady or something!  The coolest idea I’ve ever seen, and I really wish that something like this had existed when I was younger.

Those are some of my favourite memories and products of Play-Doh.  Tell me yours.