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Friday, July 13, 2012

Charlie's Angels


When I was a lot younger, I often spent a lot of time at the home of my maternal grandparents.  I still have memories of being at their house constantly.  They had this big backyard that had a swing set overlooking the creek that flowed below (which due to the fact that it was not fenced off, I had to stay away from).  And whenever I came to visit, I could always count on the fact that they would usually have some sort of treat for me to chew on while I watched television.  Nothing much...just a plate of Oreo cookies and a drink (usually Cherry 7UP or a glass of milk with Brown Cow brand chocolate syrup...remember that brand name, Canadians?).

My grandparents also seemed to have the coolest stuff possible...well, as cool as they appear in the eyes of a four year old, anyway.  They used to have a cabinet which contained a whole bunch of figurines, souvenirs, and other knick-knacks, which to me looked like neat toys.  And, I’m proud to say that despite the fact that many of the things in that cabinet were very fragile, I never broke one object.  Still, it was probably of little comfort to my grandmother, who was probably freaking out over the possibility of a four year old boy smashing up her favourite cabinet.

But aside from the cabinet of trinkets, there was something else that I enjoyed playing with and looking at.  You see, my aunts and uncles on my mother’s side were a lot younger than my mother, and a lot of their old belongings had been left behind at the home of my grandparents.  These included some old toys, books, games, and trading cards.

In particular, these trading cards.


To anyone who grew up during the 1970s, you probably know exactly what show these cards came from.  To me, I had no idea who the people in the cards were, or what the show was that they came from.  The reason being that the show aired its final episode on June 24, 1981...just one month after I was born.  It wasn’t until I grew a little older until I saw my first episode of the series, and I admit that it was definitely a show that made a huge impact in the world of pop culture for a variety of reasons.  But, we’ll get to that a little bit later.

For now, why not talk about the show that was so popular, it inspired its own set of trading cards back in 1977?


That show, of course is the ABC series “Charlie’s Angels”.  Debuting on September 22, 1976, the program survived several cast changes, as well as time slot changes, and managed to run for five years total.  And the show itself was a rather interesting concept.  The show (created by Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts, and produced by Aaron Spelling and Leonard Goldberg) took place in the city of Los Angeles, California, and depicted the lives of three young women who had just graduated from the police academy.  But despite the fact that feminism and women’s rights were starting to become fully established in 1976, the three women found that their service to the LAPD included preparing paperwork, handing out traffic tickets, and helping groups of fourth graders cross the street.  In short, they were working the most unfulfilling jobs in the station, and they wanted out.


Fortunately, their way out came in the form of a man named Charles Townsend (affectionately known as Charlie).  They joined his detective agency after quitting their jobs at the LAPD, and ended up becoming private investigators.  Throughout the course of the entire series, the viewers never saw Charlie’s face...the girls only spoke to him via speakerphone, and we only ever really saw Charlie with his back to the camera (although we now know that Dynasty star John Forsythe provided the voice of Charlie).  The girls liaison was a man named Bosley (David Doyle).

Over the course of the show’s run, there would be several angels who would appear on the series, due to various cast changes along the way.  In total, six women would end up becoming one of Charlie’s Angels throughout the years.  They were;


Kelly Garrett (Jaclyn Smith) – The only one of “Charlie’s Angels” to appear in all 110 episodes of the series.


Sabrina Duncan (Kate Jackson) – 1976-1979


Jill Munroe (Farrah Fawcett) 1976-1977 (credited as Farrah Fawcett-Majors)


Kris Munroe (Cheryl Ladd) – 1977-1981 (second longest running character, played the role of Jill’s sister after Farrah departed from the series)


Tiffany Welles (Shelley Hack) – 1979-1980 (replaced Kate Jackson)


Julie Rogers (Tanya Roberts) – 1980-1981 (replaced Shelley Hack)

The show became a huge hit when it debuted on ABC for the 1976-1977 season.  At the end of the show’s first season, the show finished strong at #5 in the Nielsen ratings, a feat that was considered fantastic at the time.  Immediately, Jackson, Fawcett, and Smith were propelled into super-stardom, and they immediately became some of Hollywood’s most beloved stars.  Farrah Fawcett proved especially popular, with her fame likely being helped by a rather iconic poster that found its way into the bedrooms of many teenage boys.  I’m sure most of you have seen it before.  Have a look.


Of course, the series did have its downside.  Certainly, the series helped bring popularity to the main stars, but it also brought a lot of headaches.  The girls found the long working hours, and the pressure to stay grounded amongst all of the photo shoots, wardrobe fittings, and talk show interviews to be very demanding.  Fawcett’s departure from the series after one season turned out to be a huge blow to the series.  Although the show remained in the Top 5, the show ended up losing almost 800,000 viewers between the first season finale and the second season premiere, although the character of Kris Munroe was positively received by the viewing public.  But after the departure of Kate Jackson, the show plummeted to 20th place in the ratings, and following the premiere of the show’s fifth season, the show didn’t even make the Top 40, leading ABC to cancel the series at the end of the fifth season.

I have some more trivia about Charlie’s Angels as well, and I think that I would like to share some of that trivia with all of you here.  This trivia comes courtesy of the Internet Movie Database.

1 – Did you know that Kate Jackson was the first actress cast in “Charlie’s Angels”?  And did you also know that Jackson didn’t even have to audition for the show at all?  She was selected for a role during the pre-production stages of the show, mainly because producers noted how popular she was on another television series, “The Rookies”.

2 – Kate Jackson was originally cast as Kelly Garrett before Jaclyn Smith was hired for the part.  This suited Jackson just fine, as she really wanted the part of Sabrina Duncan anyway.

3 – Kate Jackson ended up having a lot of influence in how the show was created, including partially coming up with the title of the show.  Initially, the show was to be called “The Alley Cats”, but Jackson didn’t like the name, and suggested to producers that she thought the girls should be named “angels” instead.  They agreed.  And, Jackson also came up with the idea of having Charlie be unseen to the audience.  With all the ideas she came up with, its a wonder her name wasn’t added right next to Spelling’s and Goldberg’s!

4 – The show was almost called “Harry’s Angels”, but changed it to Charlie to avoid confusion with another television program, “Harry O”.

5 – The Charlie’s Angels telephone number was 555-0267.


6 – John Forsythe was never seen on the soundstage of Charlie’s Angels at all...his voice was pre-recorded and dubbed in during production.

7 – Five of the six “Angels” had started off their careers in law enforcement.  The only one who didn’t have such a background was Julie, who previously worked as a model.

8 – Sabrina Duncan was the only “Angel” who had been previously married.

9 – Although Farrah left the series after season one, she made a few guest appearances during seasons three and four.  Whenever she appeared, the ratings would temporarily spike upward.

10 – There were lots of famous faces who auditioned for roles on Charlie’s Angels, but did not get cast.  Could you imagine Kathie Lee Gifford, Shari Belafonte, Priscilla Presley, Michelle Pfeiffer, or Kim Basinger as one of “Charlie’s Angels”?


11 – The idea of how Bosley was named was based on an inside joke.  At the time, the actor playing Bosley – David Doyle – was often misidentified as Tom Bosley.

12 – Many of the actresses (Kate Jackson in particular) were complaining about the quality of the scripts diminishing as the show continued, leading to a revolving door of writers being hired and fired at a fast pace.

13 – Kate Jackson was the only “Angel” to be nominated for an Emmy Award, but did not win.

14 – When Cheryl Ladd was hired to replace Farrah Fawcett, she reportedly wore a T-shirt on her first day that read “Farrah Fawcett Minor."


15 - Farrah Fawcett's departure from the series was quite controversial.  It caused a lawsuit to be filed by the producers of the series after they accused her of contract breach.  Part of the reason why Farrah agreed to do extra episodes in later season was because it was part of the settlement she reached with the producers in exchange for the lawsuits being dropped.


16 - Drew Barrymore has a couple of connections to the Charlie's Angels brand.  First, she starred in two Charlie's Angels feature films in 2000 and 2003 with Lucy Liu and Cameron Diaz...and secondly, she actually holds the screen rights to the series itself.


17 - The last time that the three original Charlie's Angels would appear together on stage was back in 2006, when they appeared on stage at the Emmy Awards to pay a tribute to Aaron Spelling.


18 - Jackson and Smith also appeared in the 2009 documentary "Farrah's Story", where they both visited her while she was battling cancer.  Just a few months later, Farrah Fawcett would pass away on June 25, 2009.


19 - A reboot of the series was attempted in the fall of 2011 on ABC, but it was cancelled after just four episodes.


20 - In 2004, a TV movie aired entitled "Behind The Scenes: The Unauthorized Story of Charlie's Angels" aired on NBC.


So, that is our tale of the television series "Charlie's Angels".  I hope you all enjoyed this look back on this classic television series, and hopefully, you've learned some facts about the show that you might not have known before.



But while it was fun to look back on the show, I admit that the show sort of reminds me of my grandmother, and how she brought out those cards for me to play with and admire.  I now have most of those cards in my possession, and I plan on keeping them as long as possible.  I know it sounds strange, but keeping those cards sort of keeps my grandmother close to me too, since having them reminds me of all those afternoons spent at her house.  If she were still alive, she would be 87 years old today...and part of me wonders if she's up there hanging out with Farrah Fawcett right now.  I think she'd probably get a hoot out of it, and I'm sure that Farrah would offer my aunt her forgiveness for crossing out her face on each card she appeared in with a blue ball-point pen.



I'm guessing that my aunts didn't care for the blonde one.  



Thursday, July 12, 2012

Inventory? You Can Count On It!


Here’s a question for all of you who are currently in the profession of retail, or who have worked a position in the world of retail at some point.  Have you ever had to go through a store-wide inventory?


Well, I can tell you that I have.  As a matter of fact, today happens to be inventory at my store.  It’s basically a day in which we have to count every single piece of merchandise within the store, from animal crackers to stuffed zebras.  And, I’m sure that most of you will agree with me when I say that if you have ever been a part of a store inventory before, it can be a rather stressful experience.

I mean, just think about it for a second.  Imagine having to count every single item in the store, knowing that one mistake could have a huge impact on how the store is run for the following year.  That can put a lot of pressure on you, as well as all of your co-workers.  I’m not afraid to admit that the idea of a store inventory still makes me feel a bit uncomfortable and nervous, and this is my seventh one!  You can only imagine how nerve-wracking it can be for someone who is diving right into the craziness and the fast pace that inventory can bring.


Although I work at a store that brings in an outside team to do our store inventory for us, I can honestly say that the preparations for inventory are probably harder than the actual inventory itself.  You have to count every box in the back room, and label it, and then you have to fix up your department so that every possible item is where it is supposed to be, and that each item is under the appropriate price point.  I know I was practically a nervous wreck the first time I was a part of an inventory team.

I have since gotten better at handling it, and now I can face the challenges that a store inventory can bring forth.  Mind you, it can still be a chore to go through, but not if you have the right attitude for it.

Because, here is my confession that is related to inventory and inventory related preparations.

THURSDAY CONFESSION #28:  When I do preparations for inventory, I do it by having a lot of fun in the process!

Yes, I know what you’re saying.  Yes, it seemingly contradicts what I just said about inventory being a many stress-filled thing.  But, I tend to look at it as being a great opportunity to showcase my silliness, and to really have fun with it.  I’m not denying that getting a store inventory ready (particularly with a store as huge as the one that I work at for my day job) can be a tough job, but if you have the right attitude towards it, you might be surprised at how fast time can fly!

I didn’t always have that attitude though.  I can remember the first time that I ever did a store inventory.  If I remember correctly, it was in 2002, before I began working at my current job.  There was a discount store downtown that used to close the store early one Saturday night in the middle of the summer.  Rather than have their staff count everything in the store, they would post an ad for outside staff to come in and count everything in the store for a little extra cash.  It wasn’t a lot of money, but given that I was unemployed at the time, I needed whatever money that I could get.

I was thinking that it was going to be a quick way to get my hands on some dough.  All I needed to do was know how to count.  With there being so many large objects within the store, I figured that I could be finished in no time.

What I didn’t count on was that I would be assigned the most frustrating department in the whole store.


Greeting cards.

That is one section that I hope to NEVER work in again.  Just imagine having to count 10,000 cards for birthdays, anniversaries, bar mitzvahs, and condolences over the death of a goldfish.  It was made even worse by trying to keep all the price points together.  Some cards were as low as ninety-nine cents, while others were over ten dollars.

(And, just going off on a tangent here, ten dollars for a card?!?  Do people actually pay that much for a card these days?)

Naturally, all the cards were mixed up, so it took hours to get everything straightened out.  By the time we managed to get all the cards counted, we had been there for three hours!  I was very cranky by the end of the day, and although I did get paid for the day, I thought that I should have gotten triple the amount for going through everything that I had gone through.

Boy, did I have the wrong attitude about it all.  Of course, it was my first experience with a store inventory.  I went into it with higher than normal expectations, and I was disappointed as a result.  It was an experience, and I learned from it.

Perhaps if I had treated the experience differently, it wouldn’t have been nearly the chore that it ended up being.  Sure, I would have done the same amount of work, but time would have gone by so much faster if my aura were more positive.

Over the years, I’ve come up with some ways to deal with the stress that can come from inventory, and I’ll share some of my coping mechanisms with all of you here.  They might not work for everyone, and I imagine that some of you will likely think that I have lost my ever-loving mind.  But, I’m going to share them anyway.

The first thing I do when I am getting ready for inventory is by singing silly songs as I work.  I usually do this anyway when I work.  After all, I do have a walk-in cooler that is mostly soundproof.  But during inventory, I tend to have fun with it by using appropriate songs.  Songs that have to do with counting...like this one.


...or this one.


My favourite has to be this one, a classic from Sesame Street.


I guess it is my good fortune that the majority of the cases in my department come in 12-packs, huh?

So, yeah...the day before inventory, you might hear some crazy 30-something warbling the lyrics to the Sesame Street pinball machine skit.  Trust me, as strange as it sounds, it helps preserve my sanity.

Another thing that I do to help cope with the pressures of inventory is through teamwork.  I find that if one has a great resource of co-workers who all have the same goal in mind, then it makes the job so much easier.

In fact, I think the main reason why this year’s inventory preparation went as smoothly as it did was because of the fact that everyone worked together to get the job done.  We all worked together, and we all did whatever was possible from organizing the cooler, to printing off labels, to having to borrow a store inventory pricing gun from another department because the one that we normally use was sent away for repairs.  There could have been a number of things that could have gone wrong, but yet nothing major happened.  And the reason why this was the case was because of the fact that everyone had the right frame of mind.  We all worked together to ensure that the job was not only finished, but finished the correct way.  I know that my job was made that much easier because of the teamwork, and because of them, inventory preparations were less of a chore than they had been in previous years.

I guess that’s a wonderful life lesson that we can take out of this blog posting.  And it doesn’t just involve preparing a store for inventory...it can be applied to almost any situation.  All you need to do is...

A)   Maintain a positive attitude whenever possible

B)   Don’t be afraid to let your silly side out to combat stressful situations

C)   Appreciate the value of teamwork, and be gracious of any help that one provides

As long as I keep these three things in check whenever I am asked to do something that may appear to be an exercise in frustration, it somehow becomes less frustrating, and at the end of the day, I can leave with a smile on my face, proud of a job well done.

With that, I’m off to work to witness another inventory day pass by...ever so slowly...time goes by so slowly...

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

The Yo-Yo Effect


One of the most frustrating things that can possibly happen when you are a child is getting a toy and having it not work properly, or get broken after a certain amount of time.

I'm sure we've all been in situations like that. I'm sure that we've all had a wheel fall off of our roller skates or skateboards. I'm sure that those of us who owned a Nintendo remember blowing into the cartridges when they refused to play in the machine. And, I'm sure that many of you were upset when the light bulbs burned out in your Lite-Brite toys or Easy Bake Ovens.

Of course, those were all things that couldn't be helped...well, unless you were incredibly rough with your toys and caused the damage yourself.

Now, what happens when you get a toy that you're dying to play with, but have absolutely no idea how to get it working, or how to set it up properly to guarantee yourself hours of fun? In these cases, the toy may very well be manufactured with the greatest of care and ease, and there isn't a single thing wrong with it. It's the owners of the toys themselves who can't figure it out.

I can think of a couple of examples to try and illustrate what I mean. You know those Rubik's Cubes where the goal of the puzzle was to arrange it so that each face of the cube was a solid colour? It's been 30 years since they've been released, and I still can't seem to figure them out. Or, those model train sets. Some people have a huge hobby of collecting train sets, and designing model train tracks...but the one and only train set I ever owned was a nightmare to complete. I don't even know if I ever managed to get the whole thing set up one hundred per cent correctly.

And then there's the subject of today's blog topic. It is a toy that I probably owned at least three or four of at any given time...and it is a toy that for whatever reason, I could not figure out how it worked.



We're going to be talking about the small, but mighty yo-yo.

I know what some of you must be saying. The yo-yo is a classic toy. How could anyone have a hard time with a yo-yo?



Well, I did. I was a...well, um...a yo-yo with a yo-yo...and no, that's not me.  It's a good representation of how horrible I was with a yo-yo though.

I mean, certainly most kids learn how to master the most simplest of moves that a yo-yo was capable of performing. The classic up and down motion. Well, do you want to know how old I was when I mastered the up/down technique? EIGHTEEN. It took me eighteen years to learn how to use a yo-yo the correct way. Looking back on it, I'm a bit embarrassed to admit that, but I just wanted to prove the point that in this case, it wasn't the yo-yo's fault.

Needless to say, learning the various tricks that can be associated with yo-yos were an impossibility for me. Instead of walking the dog, I was killing the dog. And, don't even get me started on the yo-yo trick “around the world”. I even think that Blair Warner from “The Facts of Life” did a better job with that trick than I did...and if you've ever seen the episode where she performs that trick, that should give you an indication of how hopeless I was with a yo-yo.

Despite this, I still admit that I find yo-yos to be fascinating things. I certainly admire people who can do elaborate yo-yo tricks, and deep down, I wish I could find a way to perform them too. But with my luck, the yo-yo would turn against me and strangle me to death if I tried.

The history of the yo-yo is a fascinating tale though. The earliest surviving yo-yo reportedly dates back thousands of years to the year 500 B.C. The materials that were used for the body of the yo-yo were terra cotta skin disks. If you look at the image below, you can see a painting of a boy playing with a yo-yo that was taken from the outside of an ancient Greek vase. The reason behind using the terra cotta disks were symbolic. They were used to ceremonially offer the toys of youth to certain gods when the child came of age.



And why was the toy named the “yo-yo”? Admittedly, the history behind the name has conflicting theories. The most widely believed one is that the name came from the northern Philippine Ilokano language word. Webster's Collegiate Dictionary seems to confirm this definition, so I'm going to go with this one. But another theory is that the word yo-yo was actually a Tagalong word, which meant “come from” or “return”.

So, that's your history lesson on how yo-yos were created. However, it took thousands of years before the toy became popular in North America. James L. Haven and Charles Hettrick, both of Cincinnati, Ohio, took out a patent in the United States for an improved version of the toy, which was also referred to as a bandelore. This occurred in 1866.

A few decades later, in 1928, Filipino-American Pedro Flores started up the Yo-Yo Manufacturing Company in Santa Barbara, California. The business started up small, with just a dozen handmade toys, including yo-yos, but by the following year, Flores had opened two additional factories in Los Angeles and Hollywood, California, which employed 600 people, and produced over 300,000 toys each day!



Entrepreneur Donald Duncan took notice of the yo-yo fad, and he purchased the Flores Yo-Yo Corporation and all of its assets, including the Flores name. The name “yo-yo” was registered as a trademark in America in 1932, and Duncan's first design of the yo-yo was called the Duncan O-BOY. Duncan reportedly paid more than a quarter of a million dollars to invest in the company (which was almost unheard of, given that it was smack dab in the middle of the Great Depression). Even more unheard of was that the investment that Duncan made ended up being very profitable. By 1946, Duncan's wealth had skyrocketed as a result. That same year, he opened up a factory in Luck, Wisconsin, which prompted the small town to call themselves the “Yo-yo Capital of the World”.

Duncan's yo-yo design was so successful that it ended up being inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame in Rochester, New York in 1999.

Of course, Duncan's success didn't come without its controversies, and certainly the biggest one that he faced occurred in 1965. That year, the Royal Tops Company claimed that the word “yo-yo” had become commonly used within the English vocabulary, making Duncan's rights to the name redundant. To everyone's surprise, a judge sided with Royal Tops, and the fallout caused Duncan's fortune to plummet. It caused so much damage that the Duncan family was forced to sell the business to Flambeau Incorporated in the late 1960s, which had manufactured Duncan's plastic yo-yo models for a decade prior. The company is still in operation as of 2012.

In fact, yo-yos are just as popular as ever. It sounds surprising, given that we now live in a world that is filled with iPods, mobile phones, and XBOX 360s to distract teenagers. There is something to be said about the power of the yo-yo, however.

Did you know that there is a massive online following of all things relative to the yo-yo? I didn't know this either until I did some searching around online. And the discussion and obsession over yo-yos aren't just limited to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and even Pinterest. There are several online groups devoted to yo-yo news, sharing new tricks, and exchanging yo-yo themed merchandise. Some of these sites include the following;


And those are just FIVE of many sites devoted to the yo-yo.

Then there are the various yo-yo contests that are held all over the world. Perhaps one of the most famous events is the World Yo-Yo Contest, which has been held annually since 1992 (although the first ever contest was held sixty years prior, in 1932). As of July 2012, the current yo-yo champions are;

Marcus Koh – Single Hand String Trick
Shinji Saito – Two Hands Looping Trick
Hank Freeman – Two Hands String Trick
Naoto Okada – Offstring
Takeshi Matsuura – Counterweight
Takahiko Hasegawa – Artistic Performance

TRIVIA: That second name on the list is no stranger to yo-yo championships. Reportedly, he has won TWELVE titles!

So, that is my report on the ups and downs of yo-yos. I certainly didn't have much luck with getting my yo-yo to do much of anything, but the one thing that I can say is that yo-yos are not going away. They never really left. Why, if I live until the year 2100, I bet yo-yos will still have a place in this world.

Although, in 2100, I'll be 119 years old, and will likely not be alive to collect on that bet. Oh well, c'est la vie.

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

July 10, 1989


It's time for another fun-filled look back through time with this week's installment of the Tuesday Timeline. It's the 10th of July, and there's quite a lot that has happened on this date.

So, let us not waste any time with this. We'll kick this edition of the Tuesday Timeline off with the events of July 10.

1212 – London is nearly burned to the ground following a series of devastating fires

1553 – Lady Jane Grey takes the throne of England

1584 – William I of Orange is assassinated by Balthasar Gerard in Holland

1778 – Louis XVI declares war on Britain

1821 – United States takes possession of newly bought territory of Florida from Spain

1850 – Millard Fillmore is inaugurated as the thirteenth President of the United States following the death of Zachary Taylor

1890 – Wyoming becomes the 44th U.S. State

1911 – Royal Australian Navy is established by HM King George V

1913 – The highest recorded temperature in the United States is recorded in Death Valley, California, at a sweltering 134 degrees Fahrenheit (that's nearly 57 Celsius for the metric system users)

1917 – Don “Mr. Wizard” Herbert is born in Waconia, Minnesota

1921 – 16 are killed and 161 homes are destroyed during Belfast's “Bloody Sunday”

1925 - “Monkey Trial” begins which sees teacher John T. Scopes being accused of teaching evolution in violation of the Butler Act

1926 – Fred Gwynne, otherwise known as Herman Munster, is born

1938 – Howard Hughes completes marathon 91 hour flight around the world

1940 – Vichy government established in France

1962 – The world's first communications satellite, Telstar, is launched into orbit

1966 – The Chicago Freedom Movement; Martin Luther King Jr holds a rally in a Chicago Park, which attracts over 60,000 people

1973 – John Paul Getty III is kidnapped in Rome, Italy

1976 – Seveso disaster occurs in Italy

1978 – World News Tonight debuts on ABC

1985 – Greenpeace vessel Rainbow Warrior is bombed, and sinks near New Zealand, killing Fernando Pereira

1991 – Following the end of Apartheid, the South African cricket team is readmitted into the International Cricket Council

1992 – Manuel Noriega, former Panamanian leader is sentenced to 40 years behind bars for drug and racketeering violations

1998 – Diocese of Dallas agrees to pay over $23 million to nine former altar boys who laid claim that former priest Rudolph Kos sexually abused them

2002 – Peter Paul Rubens' painting “The Massacre of the Innocents” is sold for $76.2 million to Lord Thomson at a Sotheby's auction

2005 – Hurricane Dennis strikes Florida panhandle, causing billions in damages

2011 – Russian cruise ship, Bulgaria, sinks, killing 122

My, oh my...was July 10th a busy day in recent history!

As it turns out, July 10th is also a date in which several celebrities were born. Celebrating a July 10 birthday are the following; Jake LaMotta, Alice Munro, Jerry Nelson, Ian Whitcomb, Ron Glass, Arlo Guthrie, Greg Kihn, Phyllis Smith, Cheryl Wheeler, Kim Mitchell, Rik Emmett (Triumph), Neil Tennant (Pet Shop Boys), Cindy Sheehan, Jeff Bergman, Urban Meyer, Ken Mellons, Princess Alexia of Greece and Denmark, Jonathan Gilbert, Gale Harold, Alexandra Hedison, Gary LeVox (Rascal Flatts), Jason Orange (Take That), Sofia Vergara, Andrew Firestone, Elijah Blue Allman, Adrien Grenier, Gwendoline Yeo, Thomas Ian Nicholas, Jessica Simpson, Simenona Martinez, and Heather Hemmens.

And, I am exhausted!

Now, you might notice in the celebrity birthday list that I have put one name in italics. Jeff Bergman. Why have I done this? Well, he's sort of linked to the subject of this blog. He was born on July 10, 1960, making him 52 years old today. But twenty-three years ago, when Bergman turned 29, his birthday marked the end of a legendary performer.



Yes, we're taking a trip back in time to July 10, 1989.

And it was on this date that we said farewell to one of the most well-respected voice artists the world had ever seen.



Today, we're looking back on the life and times of Melvin Jerome Blank...but you may know him better by his professional name, Mel Blanc.

He was born on May 30, 1908 in San Francisco, California to Jewish parents Frederick and Eva Blank. While he was attending high school, he had a fondness for performing and manipulating his voice and experimenting with dialects. It was something that fascinated Mel since he was ten years of age. Mel once claimed that he changed his name from Blank to Blanc when he was sixteen after a teacher told him that he would amount to nothing, and live up to his “blank” name.

Oh, if he could have seen into the future at his times, he would have eaten his words.

Mel dropped out of school when he was in the ninth grade, and immediately jumped into the world of show business, splitting his time between performing vaudeville shtick, and leading an orchestra.

TRIVIA: When Mel Blanc was conducting, he was, at the time, the youngest conductor in the country, being just seventeen.

In 1927, Blanc began a career in radio, starring on the program “The Hoot Owls” as a voice artist. Blanc's ability to speak in several dialects in various tones helped put his name out there. Five years later, he met his future wife, Estelle, and married her in 1933. That same year, he moved to Portland, and produced and co-hosted the radio show “Cobweb and Nuts” on KEX. The show ran for two years. Upon the conclusion of the show, and with encouragement from his wife, the Blancs relocated to Los Angeles, California and joined KFWB, a radio station owned by Warner Brothers in 1935. From there, he ended up becoming a regular on the NBC Red Network show “The Jack Benny Program” playing a huge variety of roles from Professor LeBlanc to Polly Parrot. Perhaps one of his most famous voices that he did from his earliest days in radio was that of Sy, the Little Mexican, who was known for only speaking one word at a time. In fact, when Sy's signature line of “Si...Sy...Sew...Sue” was performed, it was so effective that it always made everyone laugh, largely in part to Mel's comedic timing with Jack Benny.

Later, when the radio show transitioned into television, viewers finally got a taste of the wonderful partnership between Mel and Jack, and they keenly noted that whenever the two got together, Jack Benny found it damned near impossible to keep a straight face. Occasionally, Benny's writers would often make an attempt to stump Blanc by suggesting vocal effects that seemed almost impossible to achieve, such as “English horse whinny”, and “goldfish”. But clever Mel would find a way to make it work. For the latter, he just walked up to the microphone in the studio and pursed his lips a bunch of times, silently.

By the mid-1940s, Blanc had been credited to 15 radio shows, albeit in supporting or cameo roles. But on September 3, 1946, he ended up getting his own show on CBS Radio, The Mel Blanc Show. On the program, he played the part of a hapless fix-it shop owner, as well as the voice of his young cousin Zookie. The show also employed other actors, which included Mary Jane Croft, Jim Backus, Alan Reed, and Bea Benaderet. Actually, I want you to remember those last two names. They would end up working with Blanc again in a few years time. The show was well received, but it didn't even last a year, ending its run in the summer of 1947.

Of course, his radio work only served to pale in comparison to the parts that he would play on the television screen.



Back in 1937, Blanc joined Leon Schlesinger Productions. The company made animated cartoons that were distributed by Warner Brothers. But when Blanc wanted to perform voice work for the cartoons the company were making, the music director at the time (Norman Spencer), who was also in charge of cartoon voices, had told Blanc that they didn't need him. He had already cast all the voices that they needed. Mel Blanc was persistent though, and he visited Spencer every two weeks over a two year period!

When Spencer passed away, Carl Stalling took over as music director, and Treg Brown took over the role of cartoon voice casting. Brown met with Blanc and immediately introduced him to such animators as Tex Avery, Bob Clampett, Friz Freleng, and Frank Tashlin. All four men loved Mel's voices, and Blanc was immediately brought onto the team. His first cartoon was Picador Porky, where he did the voice of a drunken bull.

Soon after that, Joe Dougherty, the original voice of a character known as Porky Pig, was replaced by Blanc, who also voiced a new creation, Daffy Duck.

And as Blanc did more and more work with Looney Tunes cartoons, he would voice more characters along the way. Tweety Bird, Elmer Fudd, Pepe LePew, and Sylvester the Cat.



TRIVIA: If you ever wondered what Mel's real voice sounded like, just picture Sylvester without the lisp. That was the voice that was closest to Mel's speaking voice.



Of course, everyone knows that his most famous voice was that of Bugs Bunny, the flagship character for Looney Tunes (and to a lesser extent, Warner Brothers itself). With his intelligence, his quick wit, and his signature “What's Up, Doc?” tagline, Mel Blanc took Bugs Bunny and made him all his own. But did you know that carrots ended up making Mel's job in voicing Bugs much harder than people thought?

In order to add authenticity to the character of Bugs Bunny, Mel Blanc would often chomp on a carrot. After all, Bugs ate carrots in almost every single cartoon short he appeared in. But Mel soon discovered that chewing carrots compromised the flow of the dialogue. After trying other vegetables, such as celery, Blanc came up with a solution. He'd bite on the carrot, chew it for a few seconds, spit it out, and continue with the lines.



TRIVIA: Contrary to what some sources have said, Mel Blanc was never allergic to carrots, and in a 2004 interview with one of Blanc's confidants confirmed that Blanc spit out the carrots as a time-saving measure, not because of allergy concerns or general dislike of carrots.

Another voice that often gave Blanc a lot of trouble was that of the Looney Tunes baddie Yosemite Sam. Because Sam was loud and brash, and spoke with a raspy tone, Blanc often strained his vocal cords to the limit whenever he had to voice him. Foghorn Leghorn provided similar strain, but not nearly to the limit that Yosemite Sam did. By the late 1980s, Blanc turned over the voice work of Yosemite Sam to voice actor Joe Alaskey, as Blanc was unable to do the voice by then.

One thing that Mel Blanc fought for was the right to be credited for the work that he did as a voice artist. By 1944, his contract stipulated a credit that read “Voice Characterization by Mel Blanc”, crediting him for each voice that he performed on the show. Eventually, actress June Foray would also be given a credit for her work as Granny and Witch Hazel, which can be seen during the closing credits of “The Bugs Bunny and Tweety Show”.

Yes, Mel's time with Warner Brothers was very rewarding, and he left his lasting mark with that company. However, he also did work for other cartoon companies. He was the original voice behind the laugh of Woody Woodpecker years ago. Amd in 1960, Blanc began working with Hanna-Barbera studios, which had been working on a new animated prime time series.



That series was “The Flintstones”, which until “The Simpsons” came along in 1989 was the longest running animated sitcom to air. Mel Blanc voiced the character of Barney Rubble, and the gig reunited him with a couple of stars that he worked with on his short-lived radio program – Alan Reed, who voiced Fred Flintstone, and Bea Benaderet, who voiced Betty Rubble. Blanc would also voice the character of Mr. Spacely on “The Jetsons”.

On January 24, 1961, it almost came to an end when Blanc was involved in a serious car accident, which left him comatose. Would you believe that when word of the accident came out that over fifteen thousand fans wrote get well cards for him? Mind you, some of them were addressed to Bugs Bunny, but the thought was there, and it was nice. In fact, Blanc actually credited Bugs with saving his life. When Blanc was still in a coma, his doctor tried to interact with him by calling him by the name of his most famous voice. When the doctor asked how Bugs Bunny was today, he responded in his Bugs voice! What a neat story.

With Blanc recovering, veteran voice actor Daws Butler substituted for him on a few episodes of “The Flintstones”, while Warner Brothers briefly considered having Stan Freberg take over as the voice of Bugs Bunny while Blanc got better. Freberg refused out of respect for Blanc. Luckily, Blanc made a full recovery.

Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Blanc's voice work slowed down a bit, but he kept active. He ended up voicing the comic strip cat Heathcliff in a 1980s cartoon show, and one of his last voice projects was in the 1988 film “Who Framed Roger Rabbit”, which was one of the last times that he would voice Bugs Bunny.

In 1989, Mel Blanc filmed a commercial in celebration of Bugs' 50th anniversary with his son, Noel. But after filming wrapped up, Mel had developed a serious cough, and it alarmed Noel, who insisted that he go to the doctor. After a check-up, the doctor offered Mel two choices. He could either bring an inhaler home, or stay in a hospital overnight. Mel decided on the hospital stay. But little did he know that the decision he made would be fatal. Because a staff member failed to put rails on his hospital bed, Mel Blanc took a serious fall, breaking his femur, and releasing fat emboli into his brain. He suffered a serious stroke as a result, and 48 hours later, on July 10, 1989, he was dead.

Mel Blanc was 81 years old.



However, 23 years since his death, Mel continues to leave a lasting impression. He was the honorary mayor of Big Bear Lake, California for 33 years following the release of a song he recorded entitled “Big Bear Lake”, and was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his contributions to radio.



And here's one final point to make. You know how I made sure to focus on Jeff Bergman, who happens to celebrate a birthday today? Well, when Mel Blanc died in 1989, someone had to take over the role. Jeff Bergman was that someone, winning the role in 1989...the same year that Blanc died.

It seems almost poignant in a way for the new voice of Bugs Bunny to have a birthday that fell on the same day that Mel Blanc died. More than poignant...almost kismet in a way.

That's what happened on July 10, 1989.

Monday, July 09, 2012

Flashdance...What A Feeling!


Hello, everyone!  If you’re able to read this blog entry today, then allow me to congratulate you on surviving that nasty virus that threatened to damage all Internet connections today!  A big pat on the back for all of you this 9th day of July!!!

I myself am relieved that I am able to post this blog entry today.  I double checked everything before I started writing this piece, so I’m under the impression that I survived this virus as well. 

Sigh...it just seems like only yesterday that the Y2K bug was poised to destroy the whole world, didn’t it?

Before I launch into yet another Monday matinee, there’s something that I would like to say.

Today happens to be my sister’s birthday.  For the sake of argument, I won’t reveal what her age is today because it’s one of those milestone birthdays, and I have a feeling that she might not want everyone in the world to know it.  I could come up with...oh...forty reasons why I should, but in the end, I decided against it. J

Because when I thought about it, visual aids make for so much better discussion, don’t you think?  So while I borrowed Mom and Dad’s photo album and leafed through it, I happened to come across this lovely picture of my sister standing next to our late grandfather (who was obviously alive at the time this photo was taken).


Now, I realize that this very well could be my last blog entry ever, as I completely understand that the minute my sister sees this photo of herself taken years ago, she is liable to force feed my spleen down my throat.  But, so help me, I can’t resist.

There’re two reasons why I chose to post this photograph in particular.  The first...well, I’m a younger brother, and younger brothers are supposed to do silly things like this to their older sisters.  It’s almost a rite of passage!

And secondly, this photo is linked to today’s Monday Matinee.

Do you see the sweatshirt my sister is wearing in the photograph?  It has the word “Flashdance” on it.  Now, I have no idea when exactly this photo was taken, but I know that it was taken no earlier than 1983.  Why?  That was the year that the movie “Flashdance” was released in theatres.


The date was April 15, 1983.  “Flashdance” opened up in theatres and ended up getting some rather negative reviews.  Although the film was directed by Adrian Lyne, and was a collaboration effort between Jerry Bruckheimer and Don Simpson on the production side, the film was critically panned.  Roger Ebert placed the film on his “Most Hated List”, the New Yorker dismissed the film as simply a series of rock videos, and the screenplay of the film was actually nominated for a Golden Raspberry Award (it ‘lost’ to “The Lonely Lady”).

So, how did it end up becoming one of 1983’s most successful movies?

The film, despite its negative reviews, ended up making almost $100 million at the box office, and was the third most successful film of 1983 right behind “Star Wars Episode VI: Return Of The Jedi” and “Terms Of Endearment”.  It’s hard to say why the movie became a hit, especially since I was barely two years old when it was released.  I can only hypothesize that the majority of people may have heard how bad the film was from critics, and wanted to check it out to see what the fuss was about.  Or, maybe the film’s soundtrack had something to do with it, as a couple of songs ended up becoming huge hits.  The first one was this single.





ARTIST: Michael Sembello
SONG: Maniac
ALBUM: Flashdance Official Soundtrack Album
DATE RELEASED: June 5, 1983
PEAK POSITION ON THE BILLBOARD CHARTS: #1 for 2 weeks


The second one...well, we’ll get to that a little later.

Though, I can imagine that another reason why the film was successful...in particular with the teen boys and twentysomething men of the early 1980s...Jennifer Beals.


Yes, Jennifer Beals was the main star of “Flashdance”.  She played the role of Alex Owens.  She may only be eighteen in the film, but she has already found work as a welder at a steel mill in the city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  Well, at least that’s her day job.  At night, she switches the welding goggles for a skimpy outfit as she dances at her night job at a local bar called “Mawby’s”.

There’s one of these jobs that Alex likes doing better than the other one.  If you guessed welding, you’d get a strike against you.  No, Alex has dreams of becoming a full-time dancer.  Though, she doesn’t see herself being the cabaret girl of Mawby’s for the rest of her life.  No, she wants to become a respected dancer, and her dream is to attend the Pittsburgh Conservatory of Dance and Repertory.  Of course, the one thing holding her back is her lack of formal dance training, but despite this, she is determined to make her dream come true.

By chance, at one of her dance performances at Mawby’s, she ends up crossing paths with a man named Nick Hurley (Michael Nouri), who watches her dance.  But here’s where awkwardness comes into play here.  Hurley happens to be Alex’s boss at the steel mill where she does her day job.

(Even more awkward, when the movie began filming, Jennifer Beals was 19.  Michael Nouri was 36.  And one of the main complaints by moviegoers about this film was that they believed that Nouri’s character was too old for Beals.  Imagine that!)

Believe it or not, Alex’s friends who work with her at Mawby’s also have hopes of making it big beyond the bar one day.  Jeanie (Sunny Johnson) wants to break free from her waitressing days so she can become a professional ice skater, while her boyfriend Richie (Kyle T. Heffner) would gladly quit flipping burgers if it meant that he achieved his dream of performing stand-up comedy. 

Alex is determined to make her dream come true no matter what.  She even heads down to the Pittsburgh Conservatory to fill out an application to get into the dance program.  However, when Alex is looking over the application, and is forced to leave a large portion of it blank due to her lack of experience, she gets frustrated, and leaves the building in a hurry.  Fortunately, Alex is blessed with a caring mentor, a woman named Hanna Long (Lilia Skala), who happens to be a retired ballet dancer.  Hanna is very encouraging to Alex, and she wants to see Alex achieve her dream just as much, if not more, than Alex does.

(But is it really “Alex’s” dream?  The truth of the matter is that any scene that featured Alex dancing didn’t feature Jennifer Beals.  A couple of body doubles were used instead, and the lighting was dimmed purposely in order to hide the fact that “Alex” wasn’t really Alex.)

At the same time, Alex is trying to help her friends by supporting them in their dream.  Unfortunately, Jeanie ends up slipping a couple of times while auditioning at an ice show and the slip-up destroys her self-confidence.  She gets so depressed about the incident that she ends up taking a job at The Zanzibar, a club featuring exotic dancing.  It’s up to Alex to rescue her from the strip club once and for all.

Then there is her relationship with Nick, which develops from a friendship into a romantic interlude (which basically is a conflict of interest at her welding job), and which ends up placing her on the receiving end of Nick’s ex-wife at a restaurant.  On top of all that, when Alex ends up getting an opportunity to audition for the school she has dreamed of attending, she receives some devastating news.  The question is...how does she cope with the news?  How does she do at the audition?  Well, the truth is that the ending is up to the viewer.  It is meant to be ambiguous on purpose.  I have my own idea as to what the ending of the film is, but I’ll keep silent.  I don’t want to spoil it.



But, I think the movie provides a great message for everyone here.  If you have a dream that you want to pursue, don’t sit around and wait for it to happen.  You have to do the work yourself and find your inner strength to make it happen.

As Irene Cara once sang...take your passion, and make it happen!