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Saturday, February 09, 2013

The Proud Family


I know that this month has been designated for the special theme known as “Black History Month”, but I have to be honest with you.  For this week, we’re not exactly going back in time that many years.  We’re only going back to the time period known as September 2001 for this week’s look back on Saturday Mornings.

I probably already explained this last weekend, but when it came down to choosing topics of discussion for Black History Month, I found Saturdays to be the toughest day.  As I explained, there weren’t a whole lot of cartoons or Saturday morning programming for me to choose from that celebrated black history, so I had to get very creative when it came to selecting topics.

As you know, last week, I did a spotlight on “Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids”, and in that spotlight, I briefly talked about how a live-action movie based on the cartoon series was released in 2004.  That live-action film starred Kenan Thompson in the title role of Fat Albert, and a young actress named Kyla Pratt. 

At the time, Kyla was just seventeen years old.  But what many people didn’t realize was that this movie was not her first experience with working in the film and television industry.  She got her first acting gig singing and dancing alongside that “lovable” purple dinosaur, Barney, when she was just eight years old.  From there, she made guest appearances in several television sitcoms including “Smart Guy”, “Sister, Sister”, “Family Matters”, “Moesha”, and “Lizzie McGuire”.

By 2001, when Pratt was in her early teens, she won two roles in two different television series.  The first one was on the television series “One on One”, which ran on now defunct UPN between 2001 and 2006.

And the second series is the subject of today’s blog...and in this series, Kyla took on the role of a precocious, “animated” girl.


The name of the role she played was Penny Proud, and the television series was the animated Disney show “The Proud Family”, a television series which aired simultaneously on The Disney Channel, and during ABC’s “One Saturday Morning” block between September 15, 2001 and September 1, 2005.


The reasons why I chose this show as the spotlight for today are as follows.  First of all, the majority of the characters in the cartoon are African-American.  Secondly, almost all of the main voice actors doing the voices for the cartoon are African-American.

TRIVIA:  And, for that matter, so are the artists who sing the theme song.  The song is performed by Solange Knowles...and her sister Beyonce did the background vocals along with her Destiny’s Child bandmates Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams.

And lastly, the creator of the series is African-American.  And his story is one that is worth telling before we get into the real story of “The Proud Family”.


“The Proud Family” was created by animator Bruce W. Smith, who studied animation at the California Institute of the Arts, graduating from the program in the early 1980s.  He got his first animation gig in 1984, when he became an assistant to Bill Melendez in the television special “Garfield Sleeps Rough”.  At the time, Smith was one of only a handful of black animators in the industry.  Four years after working on “Garfield Sleeps Rough”, Smith was brought onto the animation team behind 1988’s “Who Framed Roger Rabbit”, and then four years after that, Smith worked on his very first animated feature film, “Bebe’s Kids”.

Throughout the 1990s, Bruce’s career continued to grow thanks to the various jobs he worked on.  He supervised the animation sequences in 1994’s “The Page Master”, designed the characters in “A Goofy Movie”, and co-directed the animation that was present in the movie “Space Jam”.

In 1998, Bruce W. Smith moved on to Walt Disney Feature Animation, where he served as supervising animator in such Disney animated features such as “Tarzan”, “The Emperor’s New Groove”, “Home on the Range”, and “The Princess and the Frog”.

During this time, Smith was putting the finishing touches on a new animated series that he was working on, entitled “The Proud Family”.  Interestingly enough, he was creating the show for the Nickelodeon network, hoping that the show was strong enough for airplay.  Unfortunately, Nickelodeon passed on the show.  Luckily for Smith, he had his foot in the door of Disney, and Disney picked up the show, placing it on their schedule for the 2001/2002 season.

At the time, “The Proud Family” was unique in that it was one of the first Disney animated television series that did NOT premiere on network television (the show started airing on ABC after it debuted on the Disney Channel), and that it was also the first animated Disney show that received the title of “Disney Channel Original”.

The show revolved around the life of teenager Penny Proud (voiced by Pratt).  In many ways, she is your typical teenager who loves hanging out with her friends, singing, and like most teenagers, gets embarrassed by their parents...especially her father.  Deep down inside, she loves her family with all of her heart...even if they drive her crazy a lot of the time.


And, believe me...if you had a family like Penny Proud, you’d probably understand her a lot more.



Let’s see...there’s Penny’s father, Oscar (Tommy Davidson), who is more or less an emotional basketcase when it comes to raising a teenage girl.  Overprotective, immature, and even a little bit juvenile, Oscar more often than not is the butt of all jokes.  Sure enough, on the series, he comes across as a bit of a lovable oaf.  His job title is that of snack food entrepreneur, but unfortunately, his ideas for snacks are bland and leave a bad taste in the mouths of consumers everywhere.  All that aside though, he may seem goofy, but he does have his moments of brilliance and his intentions are always well-meaning.  Then again, you know what they say about the road to good intentions...



Penny’s mother, Trudy (Paula Jai Parker) is a little bit more level-headed than her husband Oscar...no, scratch that.  Trudy is one hundred per cent more level-headed than Oscar.  She serves as the voice of reason within the family.  She has a good job working as a veterinarian, and she comes from a background of professionals...a stark contrast from Oscar’s life and times.  But, opposites tend to attract, right?



Penny isn’t the only child in the Proud Family household.  She also has two younger baby siblings.  They are twins BeBe and CeCe (both voiced by Tara Strong).  They are named after the gospel duo BeBe and CeCe Winans.  They’re only a year old, so neither one of them say very much in the way of words that are actual English, but we do know that they love their big sister very much...even if they are a little bit rough on her.

TRIVIA:  Tara Strong also voices Puff the Dog.

And, then there’s the colourful character known as “Sugar Mama Proud”, who is voiced by former “Family Matters” star, Jo Marie Payton.


Sugar Mama is a character that really needs her own description because she is a character in her own right.  Nobody really knows how old she is...not that it’s anybody’s business, as a real lady is never supposed to reveal her age, right?  And, although she is the mother of Oscar Proud, you’d never know it.  Sugar Mama often takes great pleasure in insulting, humiliating, and in some cases, even inflicting physical pain on her adult son!  Though, I don’t believe that she does it maliciously.  Deep down inside, I think that Sugar Mama loves her baby...she just has a really short fuse for stupidity and people who lack common sense, and well, Oscar seems to boast both of those qualities in spades.

But then in some cases, the apple doesn’t exactly fall far from the tree.  Although Sugar Mama developed a romantic relationship with Papi Boulevardez, she isn’t aware that because Papi can only speak Spanish, he’s actually disguising his insults as words of affection towards the Spanish-illiterate Sugar Mama. 


(Though, I’ll be the first to admit that Papi is probably one of the funniest characters on the whole cartoon because of that fact alone.)



And, of course, we can’t forget about Penny’s friends. (who conveniently ditch her whenever she gets into a jam...I suppose we should then call them fair-weather friends, huh?)

There is LaCienega Boulevarde (Alisa Reyes), which admittedly is a play on words in regards to a famous street in Los Angeles.  LaCienega is sometimes a friend to Penny, but sometimes an enemy.  I guess the word we would use to describe her is a frenemy.  She can turn on the charm like a light switch though, convincing adults and authority figures that she’s as sweet as cherry pie, but making her peers feel like they’re beneath her.  But, don’t let anyone know that she’s really a softy who respects Penny.  Her reputation’s at stake, you know.

There’s also Zoey (Soleil Moon Frye), a nerdy girl who often feels insecure about everything, Dijonay (Karen Malina White), a caring, enthusiastic friend whose penchant for gossip has gotten Penny into hot water more than once.  And, there’s Sticky (Orlando Brown), the only boy in the group.  He can work wonders with technology, and can find a way to hack into every school system, but seems to be caught in the middle of a rather weird love triangle involving Penny and Dijonay.

There are also some minor characters which make appearances on the show, including Wizard Kelly (Aries Spears), Oscar’s brother Bobby (Cedric the Entertainer), and Peabo (Cree Summer), the Proud’s nine-year-old neighbour.

Oh, and don’t forget about the number of guest stars who have made an appearance either as themselves or a guest character.  The following celebrities who have been featured in “The Proud Family” are Mariah Carey, Al Roker, Samuel L. Jackson, Vivica A. Fox, Raven-Symone, Steve Harvey, Vanessa L. Williams,  Sheryl Lee Ralph, Shia LeBeouf, Robert Guillaume, Mos Def, Cicely Tyson, Anthony Anderson, Wendy Raquel Robinson, Ving Rhames, Lou Rawls, and Frank Welker.

So, to close off this look back on “The Proud Family”, why not watch an episode?  After all, it hasn’t aired on the Disney Channel since 2011...it may jog some of your memories!



Friday, February 08, 2013

Diff'rent Strokes


Black History Month” continues with a look back on a television program that was huge during the late 1970s and early 1980s. It was a show that spent the first seven seasons on NBC, and its final season on ABC. And, it's also a show that I briefly talked about in a previous Tuesday Timeline entry.

That entry was written on May 8, 2012, and it was about the passing of young starlet Dana Plato. It talked about her rise to stardom, her fall from grace, her police record, and her death from a drug overdose on May 8, 1999, at the age of 34. If you want to, you can read that piece by clicking HERE, but it's not necessary.



Anyway, in that entry, I spoke about the role that helped catapult Dana Plato to stardom. When she signed on to play the role of Kimberly Drummond for the pilot episode of a series called “Diff'rent Strokes”, I don't even think that she had any idea how big the show would get. Dana played the role of Kimberly throughout all eight seasons, though her appearances in the latter half of the series were sporadic due to a pregnancy as well as the constant media reports about her substance abuse.

But for this week, we're not going to talk about Dana Plato.

In this edition of the “TGIF” blog entry, we're going to talk about the show as a whole...we're going to talk about what made the show work, the guest stars who became superstars in their own right, and because we're doing a month-long feature on Black History Month, we're going to talk about just how groundbreaking this show was.

(And, in order to prove that point, I might have to talk about the “very special episodes” that Diff'rent Strokes became associated with. I hope you don't mind.)



Diff'rent Strokes” debuted on November 3, 1978 on NBC. Aside from Dana Plato, the series initially starred Conrad Bain as Philip Drummond, Todd Bridges as Willis Jackson, Gary Coleman as Arnold Jackson, and Charlotte Rae as the Drummond family housekeeper, Edna Garrett.

But did you know that the show was initially planned to go under a different title?

It was originally to be called “45 Minutes From Harlem”, and was designed as a joint vehicle for Bain (who had previously had a role in the Bea Arthur series, “Maude”) and Coleman, who had attracted the attention of producers after seeing him appear in a series of commercials. Todd Bridges and Dana Plato were added to the cast shortly after that, and before the show debuted in 1978, the name of the show was changed to “Diff'rent Strokes”...which ended up being a better title to describe the plot of the series.

TRIVIA: What is hysterical is what the show was called in other countries! Just take a gander at some of the alternate titles that the show title was translated to.

Spain – ARNOLD
France – ARNOLD ET WILLY
Venezuela – ARNOLD THE MISCHIEVIOUS ONE
Mexico – WHITE AND BLACK
Italy – MY FRIEND ARNOLD
Japan – LITTLE BOY ARNOLD IS POPULAR
Israel – ABOUT TASTE AND SMELL (?!?)
Taiwan – LITTLE RASCAL
Germany – ANY MORE QUESTIONS, ARNOLD?
Thailand – THE FUNNY MIDGET (?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?)

Can you tell who most of the countries believed was the star of the show? And, I'm still gobsmacked over the translations for Israel and Thailand!

When the pilot episode begins, we are automatically introduced to widower Philip Drummond and his teenage daughter, Kimberly. Philip is one of New York City's wealthiest citizens, living in a penthouse overlooking Manhattan, and he and Kimberly share their living space with their housekeeper, Edna.

But Edna was hardly the first housekeeper that the Drummond household had, and she was far from being the last. Before Edna came along, Mr. Drummond had hired Lucy Mae Jackson to serve as his housekeeper, and Lucy was the mother of two young boys, Willis and Arnold. Lucy lived with her boys in Harlem, New York, and the three of them were happy until Lucy got very sick. Before Lucy passed away, she talked with Philip on her deathbed and made him promise to look after her two boys in her place. Philip agreed, and approximately a few months after Lucy's death, Philip welcomed Arnold and Willis into his Park Avenue home.



But if you thought that the transition would be a smooth one...think again. When you combine two rich and privileged white Americans with a couple of tough African-American boys who grew up in Harlem, you know that there's going to some clashing.

And, sure enough, there is. Not so much with Arnold though. As long as he had his beloved pet fish, Abraham, along for the ride, he was content with wherever home was. Willis, on the other hand, was not excited about moving to Park Avenue at all, and he fully intended on moving back to Harlem the minute that he had the opportunity. Despite Philip and Kimberly's efforts to try and provide a happy home for Arnold and Willis (including planned family outings and trying to create a Family Fun Night), Willis is determined to go back to Harlem, and he plans on forcibly taking Arnold with him, which causes the normally calm Mr. Drummond to lash out at Willis, calling him selfish. This begins the bridge to communication between the Jackson boys and the Drummond family, and eventually Willis agrees to stay. The following year, Philip legally adopts Willis and Arnold as his own children (though they decide to keep the Jackson name).




The core cast would more or less remain the same over the next few years (aside from Plato's sporadic appearances in seasons seven and eight). Charlotte Rae left the series after the first season to star in the spin-off program “The Facts of Life”. She was replaced by Nedra Volz (who played Adelaide Brubaker), who in turn was replaced by Mary Jo Catlett (who played Pearl Gallagher). In addition, when Mr. Drummond fell in love with aerobics instructor, Maggie McKinley (Dixie Carter/Mary Ann Mobley), they tied the knot, and with that, Maggie and her son Sam (Danny Cooksey) joined the cast.

Now, the whole idea of doing a sitcom on a blended family was nothing new by the end of the 1970s. After all, “The Brady Bunch” started airing almost an entire decade before “Diff'rent Strokes” was even thought of. But what made “Diff'rent Strokes” different (and revolutionary) was the fact that the blended family involved people of two different races. And, here's the thing...there were no colour lines in the Drummond household. Philip loved Willis and Arnold just as much as he loved Kimberly (and later Sam). The family all had their share of great times, and they all experienced the problems that all families did. Of course, mind you, many of the problems that the Drummonds experienced were also quite unique.

In many cases, the Drummond/Jackson family unit had to deal with the subject of racism and prejudice, as a result of Willis and Arnold moving in with them...but what was interesting about the way that all of the situations were handled was the fact that each of the members of the family stood together for what was right, and the creative solutions that they came up with to fight against bigotry were to be applauded (even though the situations and characters were fictional).



Take the third episode of the first season, for example. The episode was called “Mother's Last Visit”, and originally aired in November 1978. Philip's mother drops by for a visit so that she can meet her new adopted grandsons. But her excitement soon fades when she realizes that Arnold and Willis are black. Initially, Philip tries his best to get his mother to look past that fact, but when her prejudices are made even more clear, he tells it as it is, and ends up gaining Willis and Arnold's respect in the process.



In September 1979, a two-part episode aired when Arnold is forced to get his appendix taken out, and Arnold ends up meeting a little girl named Alice, who is having her tonsils removed. The two kids become quick friends, and want to be put in the same hospital room together, but there's a problem with Alice's father. Alice happens to be Caucasian, and Alice's father (who is played by special guest star Dabney Coleman), is against the idea of his daughter sharing a hospital room with a boy who was black. So, Arnold and Alice take off from the hospital in protest, and it leaves both families to search for the kids before Arnold's appendix bursts. Don't worry though. Everything worked fine in the end. In fact, you can click HERE and HERE to watch the conclusion if you like. It's quite spectacular!



Perhaps one of my favourite Diff'rent Strokes episodes of all time was the one entitled “Skin Deep or True Blue”, which aired in February 1980. The episode featured a young Melora Hardin as the sister of Kimberly's new love interest, Roger. She happens to become interested in Willis, who teaches her some dance moves, and Willis decides to ask her out on a date. Now, she's all excited to be going to a dance with Willis...but Roger is against the idea. It turns out that Roger is prejudiced against black people...and he is especially against the idea of interracial dating (which admittedly was a huge hot-button issue in the 1980s). Of course, Arnold and Willis figured it out right away after Arnold records a conversation between Roger and his sister on his tape recorder...and when Kimberly discovers the truth, she decides that she needs to teach him a lesson. Just click HERE to see what I mean. It's something that you simply have to see.



And, of course, who could forget the December 1981 episode in which Mr. Drummond is given a very special honour at the health club that he has been a member of for many years? But Mr. Drummond is so blinded by the prestige and honour that he fails to notice that the very club he belongs to refuses to let African-American members inside, after Arnold and Willis are turned away at the door. This sets the stage for a confrontation at the banquet, where Willis' admission causes Philip to take a stand once and for all. Watch it HERE.

I should also note that the show has dealt with other serious issues during its eight year run, dealing with subjects such as bulimia, environmental issues, drugs and alcohol, epilepsy, kidnapping, and child molestation. In fact, I'd just like to single out the last two subjects in particular as being two of the most sobering episodes of Diff'rent Strokes ever. In the former, we see WKRP in Cincinnati star Gordon Jump as you've never seen him before, and in the latter, you see Sam being kidnapped by a grieving man who can't deal with the loss of his son. It's very gripping stuff, and very unlike the other episodes of the series, which were mainly light-hearted and fun.

That's why I think Diff'rent Strokes stood out from the other sitcoms. It wasn't afraid of hot button issues. Not only did the show showcase storylines that other sitcoms were afraid to, but they did it in such a way that we ended up cheering for the Drummond/Jackson family. It was brilliant the way that the episodes were written, and I can see why it was so popular.



Why, if then First Lady Nancy Reagan could appear on an episode of “Diff'rent Strokes”, then you know that the show was a hit, right?

The show also featured some actors who grew up to be humongous stars and starlets. Did you know that when Willis ended up getting a girlfriend on the show, she was played by future recording artist Janet Jackson?



(Though to be fair, Janet Jackson had been acting years prior to appearing on Diff'rent Strokes).

The show also featured guest appearances by Meadowlark Lemon, Elinor Donahue, Muhammad Ali, Greg Mullavey, Lisa Whelchel, Mindy Cohn, Kim Fields, Molly Ringwald, Audrey Meadows, McLean Stevenson, Joey Lawrence, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Andrew Dice Clay, Dorothy Hamill, David Hasselhoff, John Astin, Ray Bolger, Hoyt Axton, Lance Parrish, Forest Whitaker, Clarence Clemons and Royce D. Applegate.

Sadly, the show was also the source of a supposed curse that affected most of the child actors...but we won't go into that any further.

What is shocking is that of all the cast members of Diff'rent Strokes, only half are still living today. Conrad Bain was the most recent star to pass away, dying at the age of 89 on January 14, 2013. Gary Coleman lost his life following a fall down a flight of stairs, resulting in a fatal head injury on May 28, 2010. He was just 42. You already know about Dana Plato's death on May 8, 1999. Dixie Carter, who played the first Maggie Drummond, passed away on April 10, 2010, at the age of 70. And, Nedra Volz lived to the ripe old age of 94 when she died on January 20, 2003.

They may be gone...but with reruns still airing in various parts of the world, and the first few seasons available on DVD, the show will never really be forgotten. Nor should it. It showed that it was possible to have a happy family life with strong bonds no matter what the colour of people's skin was. It really opened up doors within the prime time television industry, and I for one am happy to have gotten the chance to watch it.

Thursday, February 07, 2013

Dr. Daniel Hale Williams - The Heart of Medicine


All right...here we go with Day #7 of Black History Month, and I’ll be the first to admit that I wasn’t exactly sure how I was going to make the Thursday Diaries reflect that.  As many of you might have guessed by the picture that I use for my profile, I’m not black.  Therefore, I couldn’t very well tie my own experiences to Black History Month.

So, I decided to try looking at it from another angle.

And thanks to a tip from one of my friends (thanks Bailey!), I believe I have a solution for how to approach it for the first week, and I hope that by reading this, you might gain a new appreciation for not only Black History Month, but also another theme month that is also happening during February.

Confused yet?  Don’t be.  Everything will be explained below.

February 7, 2013

Can you believe that we’re into the month of February?  I know it seems like a week ago that I was complaining about January being incredibly slow, and yet February just seems to be speeding right along.  Though, I shouldn’t be too shocked by that.  Even on a leap year, it’s still the shortest month.

February is also a very special month for a couple of reasons.  I’m sure that if you’ve been keeping up with this blog the past week, you know what the first reason is.  I’ve always toyed with the idea of featuring a “Black History Month” in this space for a while now, and in 2013, I decided that I wanted to attempt it just to see if I could keep up with it for an entire month.  Not only am I surprising myself by coming up with twenty-eight distinct topics for discussion this month, but I am also learning a lot about the contributions and the ideas that have been shared by African-Americans, African-Canadians, etc.  Some of the facts that were discovered, I already knew, but in my research I’ve come across a lot of different discoveries that surprised me!  I’ve always had much respect for “Black History Month”, and to learn just how much of an impact the discoveries and inventions that black people have created for our modern world is admirable, and that’s why I decided to make a month long feature on some of these people.

Granted, most of them are figures within the world of pop culture.  But on this and the next three Thursdays, I thought that I would use this space to talk about key figures who have made a difference in the lives of how people live, and more importantly, how people treat each other.

And, it is because of this that I’ve decided to provide a link between “Black History Month” and another month-long event that also takes place in the month of February.


I’m not entirely sure what the event is called in other areas of the world, but in Canada, February is recognized as “National Heart and Stroke Month”.  Did you know that cardiovascular disease is responsible for almost thirty per cent of all deaths recorded in any given year?  And that heart disease is the number one killer of women?  Those are some sobering statistics right there.

I’m sure that we all have known someone who has had to battle heart disease, had a heart attack, or a stroke.  I know that my family has been touched by all of the above.  My grandmother passed away in 1991 from a heart attack at the age of 65, and my grandfather suffered a series of strokes before he died at the age of 78 in 2001.



In Canada, there are a number of charities and organizations that are dedicated to supporting people who have lost loved ones to heart disease and stroke, and there are annual events that are taking place this month to raise awareness.  One such event began in 2003 by the American Heart Association.  The organization (in partnership with the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute) created the “National Wear Red Day” to get women to become aware of the fact that heart disease was the number one cause of death for women.  Although it’s a bit late to mention this by now, the first Friday in February is a day in which women and men are to show support for fighting against heart disease by wearing the colour red.


The following year, the “Go Red for Women” program was launched, which is designed to empower women to take charge of their heart health, as well as banding together to combat heart disease.

Can you believe that the “Go Red for Women” movement is celebrating its tenth anniversary this year?  In those ten years, the movement has spread cross-country, and even Canada is taking part in this event to celebrate heart health.

You know, I have to give a lot of credit to the cardiologists out there, who work miracles every day.  They work tirelessly to make sure that people’s hearts are functioning properly.  Whether it be checking up on patients to make sure that they’re taking care of themselves, or performing open heart surgeries in hopes of unclogging arteries within the heart, I certainly have a lot of respect for them.

Of course, none of that would have been possible had it not been for those who pioneered the practice known as open-heart surgery.  And, this is where “National Heart and Stroke Month” collides with “Black History Month”.


Did you know that one of the very first cardiac surgeries was performed by African-American surgeon Dr. Daniel Hale Williams?  And, that’s not the only claim to fame he has to his credit either.  We’ll get to that a little bit later.

Daniel Hale Williams was born on January 18, 1858 in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania, the son of a black barber and a Scots-Irish woman, and was the last of five children.  His father passed away when Williams was just nine years of age, and the family moved to the state of Maryland when Williams was a young boy.

At some point during his childhood, Williams had decided that he had wanted to go into the field of medicine, and he graduated from Chicago Medical College in 1883, at the age of twenty-five.

Unfortunately for Williams, despite the fact that he had his certification to practice medicine, no hospital in the Chicago area would touch him.  It wasn’t because he had not done well in his studies, or that he was incapable of handling the pressure of the job. 

It was because of the colour of his skin.

Yes, racism was still alive and well in the late 1800s in America, as all of the Chicago area hospitals barred black doctors from practicing medicine.  And, this frustrated Dr. Daniel Hale Williams to no end.  He knew that he could save lives, but was working in a district that would not give him a chance to prove himself.

So eight years after graduating medical school, he took it upon himself to open the doors to all African-American doctors and patients in the area.


In 1891, the doors to Provident Hospital opened up its doors making it the first Black owned and operated hospital in the United States.  The hospital was designed with the purpose of treating patients who were black, as well as being the first hospital of its kind to train doctors and nurses of African-American background.

Two years later, Williams would become one of the first people to perform cardiac surgery on a patient when he was forced to operate on a person who sustained a critical knife wound. 

The year was 1893, and the patient was one James Cornish.  Cornish had been stabbed in the chest with a knife, and the resulting injury left him with a torn pericardium.  Although Dr. Williams was not the first person who had ever done surgery on the heart, he did perform the surgery without the use of penicillin or a blood transfusion.  The surgery was performed on July 10, 1893, and ended up being a success (though it took Cornish approximately two months to fully recover from the trauma).



Later on in the year, then American President Grover Cleveland appointed Dr. Williams as surgeon-in-chief of Freedman’s Hospital in Washington D.C.  He was in charge of organizing the hospital, but he also helped create a training school for African-American nurses within the facility.  He also worked as an attending surgeon at Cook County Hospital in Chicago, co-founded the National Medical Association for African-American Doctors in 1895, and was only African-American doctor to become a chartered member of the American College of Surgeons in 1913.

He really helped open the doors for African-American people, didn’t he?  Just think about it for a second.  How many lives do you think have been saved because of the fact that Dr. Daniel Hale Williams made it possible for doctors and nurses of colour to practice medicine?  I would estimate thousands at least, if not millions.  That’s why his contributions to the world of medicine should be celebrated.  Not just because he was one of the first people to perform a successful heart surgery, but because he was the first person who helped demolish the colour lines to ensure that everybody had the right to good, quality health care.

Dr. Daniel Hale Williams died in Michigan on August 4, 1931, aged 73.  But his name still echoes through the chambers of hospitals everywhere.  Stevie Wonder immortalized him in song on his single “Black Man”.  Have a listen below.


And perhaps one of his greatest accomplishments, the foundation of Provident Hospital, still exists, though not in the same form.  Due to financial difficulties, the main hospital site was shut down in 1987.  However, in 1993, the facility reopened within Cook County Hospital to provide services to people in Chicago’s South Side.  It is now referred to as Provident Hospital of Cook County.


So, there you have it.  We looked at “Heart and Stroke Month”, tied it to Black History Month, and paid tribute to a man who helped bust down barriers within the medical community.


And it was an honour to type every word.

Wednesday, February 06, 2013

Building a Better Water Pistol


So, we’re on day number six of Black History Month, and I thought that for this and the next four Wednesdays, I would change things up a smidgen.  Oh, don’t worry...I’ll still be talking about toys and games over the next four weeks.  But the four subjects that I will be talking about are all toys, and innovations that were invented and perfected by African-American people. 

When I was doing the research in trying to find suitable topics for Black History Month, I was truly blown away over just how many everyday items were invented by people of African ancestry, and I was also equally impressed to see that so many ideas forever changed the way that we looked at pre-existing inventions.

Today’s subject deals with the latter subject.  You’ve all heard of the phrase “building a better mousetrap” right?  In this case, a man by the name of Lonnie Johnson did exactly that...only he didn’t use mousetraps.  He used a toy that children of all ages have played with for generations.

He invented a better water pistol.

True, this is the month of February, and unless you happen to live close to the equator or in the Southern Hemisphere, a water pistol is useless in the cold winter air.  After all, a water pistol with frozen ammunition is no fun to anybody...well, unless you wanted to throw it at them in hopes of knocking them out cold.

Not that I am openly RECOMMENDING YOU DO THIS!!!


But, after reading the story of Lonnie Johnson and how a simple addition to the water gun helped catapult it to become one of the 1990s most popular toys, how could I not talk about it?

Lonnie Johnson was born in Mobile, Alabama on October 6, 1949, and grew up always wanting to find out how everyday household appliances worked.  During his early childhood, he was often taking apart old, broken-down appliances to learn about how they worked, and by the time he graduated high school, he had already won the “Linex” competition by inventing a robot that he had built using scraps of metal and other assorted materials from the local junkyard.

After earning a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering in 1972 and an M.S. in Nuclear Engineering in 1974 (both degrees being earned at Tuskegee University), Johnson joined the United States Air Force, and became an Advanced Space Systems Requirements Officer at the headquarters of the Strategic Air Command based out of Omaha, Nebraska.  He moved from there to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, where he helped develop thermodynamic and control systems for space projects.  He was responsible for some noteworthy projects such as working on the Galileo Jupiter probe and the Mars Observer project, but his finest work came in 1988, with the invention of the Johnson tube – a CFC-refeigeration system with a hydraulic heat pump...or as Johnson called it, Patent #4,724,683 – his seventh in an ongoing series.

Now, for non-science readers (and I readily admit to being one), this might seem like a whole bunch of gibberish or gobbledegook.  Yet, it’s important enough to mention because science was a key factor in how Johnson would reinvent the water pistol as we knew it.

It all began in the 1980s, when Johnson founded his own company (Johnson Research and Development).  In 1982, three years prior to the creation of his company, Johnson was inside his bathroom when a homemade sink nozzle began to shoot a steady stream of water clear across the room...and it got Johnson’s wheels turning inside his brain.  What if he took that technology and implemented it into a water gun, effectively doubling the power and the soaking ability of it?  Could it be done?

The answer, of course, is yes.

Johnson quickly figured out that by using pressurized air to force the water out of the water pistol’s nozzle, it would cause the water to shoot out the water with greater power, expanded range, and improved accuracy.  He immediately went to work on creating a prototype for his new and improved water gun.  With his partner, Bruce D’Andrade, Johnson worked on his creation for several years.


It wasn’t until November 1989 that Johnson had finished his prototype.  The name of the invention was something called a “Power Drencher”, and the water pistol did exactly what Johnson had expected it would do.  It used pressurized air to shoot water at a rapid pace, up to fifty feet away.  The patent for the Power Drencher garnered interest from the toy company “Larami” - a company that dedicated itself to manufacturing action figures, soap bubble toys, and water toys – and they started manufacturing the toys in 1990.

Sales during the first year that the Power Drencher was available for purchase were slow however, and it wasn’t until the following year that Larami decided that a rebranding of the product might help boost sales.

And so, in early 1991, the Power Drencher name was retired, and instead was rechristened as the Super Soaker...a name which has remained ever since.

And with the name change, came an aggressive marketing campaign.  Have a look at one of the original Super Soaker advertisements which dominated television during the early 1990s.


Over the next few years, Super Soakers began to fly off of toy shelves all over the world, and with the demand came several designs of the Super Soaker.  Below are a couple of the tweaks that were made to the original 1989 design (which was later renamed the Super Soaker 50).


Most models use either one of two possible propulsion systems.  The pressurized reservoir system has one reservoir for both air and water.  The water goes in first, and then air is forced in under pressure.  When the Super Soaker trigger is pulled, the air forces the water out of the reservoir. 

There are also Super Soakers that have separate compartments...one for air, the other for water.  Water is pumped from the reservoir into the firing chambers, which compresses the air inside.  It exerts a force on the water, which provides the power to push the water through the nozzle when the trigger is pulled.

Now, as to which one is better, I’ll leave that to you.  I owned the model that had the pressurized reservoir system, and it worked beautifully, but I have also heard that Super Soakers that utilize the separate compartments are more powerful.  I haven’t had the opportunity to test that theory out, but I’m curious to know if that is the truth.

The Super Soaker was manufactured by Larami until 1995, when Hasbro bought out the company.  After 1995, all Super Soakers were made under the Hasbro name. 

The Super Soaker has since become an icon in the history of toys that have been made within the last twenty-five years, and in 2011, it won the award for “Outdoor Toy of the Year” at the American International Toy Fair in New York City.  And, I’m sure that the Super Soaker helped bring Lonnie Johnson a lot of fame and fortune.  Since the introduction of the Super Soaker in 1990, it is estimated that over fifty million Super Soakers have been sold, generating sales of well over $200 million!


So, what has Mr. Johnson done since reimagining the way that modern water pistols are made?

Well, remember how I said that in 1988, he had registered his seventh American patent?  That number has grown to over eighty patents, with a reported twenty more pending.  He has also written several research articles and publications on the subject of spacecraft power stations.  Johnson has won several awards and honours for his work in both entrepreneurship and inventing, and in 1994, February 25 was officially recognized as “Lonnie G. Johnson Day” in Marietta, Georgia.


So, the next time that you pick up a Super Soaker and use it to spray your bratty little brothers, the annoying kids who live next door, or that nasty woman across the street that shouts nothing but insults at you...be sure to give your thanks to Lonnie Johnson...the man who built a better water pistol.

Tuesday, February 05, 2013

February 5, 1986


When I came to the decision to make the month of February Black History Month in this blog, I went into it knowing that I would have to make the Tuesday Timeline entries reflect that.  I would have to make sure that the date that I chose had to have something to do with Black History (or at the very least featured someone of African ancestry).

There are four Tuesdays in February, and for three of the four weeks, finding topics of discussion were very easy. 

This week was the only one that gave me a bit of a struggle.

After doing hours of research, and visiting what seemed like hundreds of “This Day in History” websites, I couldn’t come up with a topic.

That is until I stumbled upon a website on music history, and came up with a passable topic.  Believe me, February 5 was not a date in which there was much going on in the subject of Black History.

However, there was quite a lot that did happen on this date...

62 A.D. – Earthquake in Pompeii, Italy

1597 – A group of early Japanese Christians are killed by the new government of Japan for being a societal threat

1631 – Roger Williams emigrates to Boston

1778 – South Carolina becomes the second state to ratify the Articles of Confederation

1782 – Spanish defeat British forces and capture Minorca

1818 – Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte ascends to the thrones of Sweden and Norway

1848 – American outlaw Belle Starr is born in Carthage, Missouri

1852 – One of the largest and oldest museums in the world, The Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia, opens to the public

1869 – The largest alluvial gold nugget in history is unearthed in Moliagul, Victoria, Australia

1900 – The United Kingdom and the United States sign a treaty for the Panama Canal

1909 – Leo Baekeland, a Belgian chemist, announces his new invention, Bakelite (the world’s first synthetic plastic)

1917 – On the same day that Mexico adopts its current constitution, the United States Congress passes the Immigration Act of 1917, which forbade immigration from nearly all of South and Southeast Asia

1918 – Stephen W. Thompson shoots down a German airplane, but on the same day, SS Tuscania is torpedoed off the coast of Ireland, which killed 210, including several Americans

1919 – Film company United Artists is launched by Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, and D.W. Griffith

1924 – The Royal Greenwich Observatory begins broadcasting hourly time signals known as the “Greenwich Time Signal”

1937 – Franklin D. Roosevelt proposes a plan to enlarge the Supreme Court of the United States

1941 – During World War II, Allied forces begin Battle of Keren

1958 – A hydrogen bomb is lost by the United States Air Force (the Tybee bomb) off the coast of Savannah, Georgia, and has never been found

1971 – Astronauts aboard Apollo 14 land on the surface of the moon

1972 – Bob Douglas is elected into the Basketball Hall of Fame, the first African-American to achieve the honour

1976 – The Swine Flu Outbreak of 1976 originates in Fort Dix, New Jersey

1988 – Manuel Noriega is indicted on drug smuggling and money laundering charges

1994 – Sixty people are killed and another 200 are injured after a mortal shell slams into a Sarajevo marketplace during the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina

1997 – A $71 million fund to aid Holocaust survivors and their families is established by three of Switzerland’s largest financial institutions

2008 – A major tornado outbreak occurs in the Southern United States, killing fifty-seven people

So, aside from the one event that happened in 1972, there wasn’t a lot to choose from.  Sure, I could have done a feature on the Baskeball Hall of Fame, but because I know very little about basketball, I didn’t think I could do it justice.

There’s also a lot of celebrity birthdays for February 5, and the following people are turning one year older today...Al Worthington, Hank Aaron, Don Cherry, Stuart Damon, Larry Hillman, Jane Bryant Quinn, Dick Warlock, David Selby, Roger Staubach, Cory Wells (Three Dog Night), Nolan Bushnell, Michael Mann, Craig Morton, Al Kooper, Charlotte Rampling, Darrell Waltrip, Christopher Guest, Barbara Hershey, Errol Morris, Tom Wilkinson, Jonathan Freeman, Cliff Martinez (Red Hot Chili Peppers), Mike Heath, David Wiesner, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Laura Linney, Duff McKagan (Guns N Roses), Chris Parnell, Roberto Alomar, Bobby Brown, Sara Evans, Adam Carson (AFI), Brian Moorman, Adam Everett, Ahmad Merritt, Shawn Reaves, Brian Russell, Diedra Dionne, Brian Everett, Nate Salley, Lindsey Cardinale, Crystal Hunt, Paul Vandervort, Ashley Simmons, Jeremy Sumpter, and Davis Cleveland.

So, what date have I decided to finally settle on?


Well, it’s this one.  February 5, 1986.

Twenty-seven years ago on this date, a particular song made its way onto store shelves, radio stations, and MTV.  The song was recorded by an already established African-American star who had released eight albums of varying success.  Although his first few albums didn’t exactly make a dent on the charts, as time went on, he quickly rose up in the ranks of pop music, and soon found himself competing against other artists of colour including Michael Jackson, Janet Jackson, Whitney Houston, and Tina Turner.

And, on February 5, 1986, he released his thirty-first single, which would eventually become his third #1 Billboard hit.  Ironically enough, the song appeared on the film soundtrack that our featured singer also starred on...which didn’t exactly get a lot of positive attention.  Though, I suppose when you consider that the song was the best part of the whole movie, I guess it can’t be all bad news.

So, here’s the deal.  I did find a copy of the music video that I will post here for now, but don’t be surprised if you see this video disappear soon after, as this man is pretty much against all video sharing sites.  So, I just want to tell you all to enjoy the video while it lasts because it might not be staying put.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Xq2qiVeYYw

ARTIST:  Prince and the Revolution
SONG:  Kiss
ALBUM:  Parade:  Music from the Motion Picture “Under the Cherry Moon”
DATE RELEASED:  February 5, 1986
PEAK POSITION ON THE BILLBOARD CHARTS:  #1 for 2 weeks
(NOTE:  I cannot post the video in the actual blog...sorry.)

Now, I have a confession to make.  “Kiss” is not my favourite Prince song.  I’m more of a “Raspberry Beret” kind of guy.  But since the song was released exactly twenty-seven years ago, and I was trying to come up with a suitable topic for the Tuesday Timeline, I figure that I’d go with it.

But before I go ahead with the song discussion, how about a brief biography of the singer who took this song to the top of the charts?


It seems hard to believe but Prince Rogers Nelson is going to be turning fifty-five years old this year!  According to his bio, he was born June 7, 1958 in Minneapolis, Minnesota.  That’s absolutely mind-boggling to me that Prince is turning 55.  Where did time go?

Prince was one of those people that seemed destined for a career in music, writing his very first song at the age of seven.  Ten years later, he was a part-time member of his cousin’s band, 94 East, recording a few songs with them before deciding to try his hand at a solo career.  He had a few unsuccessful attempts with demo tapes, but in 1978, he released his first album, “For You”.  His next three albums, 1979’s “Prince”, 1980’s “Dirty Mind”, and 1981’s “Controversy” all had varying levels of success, and in 1982, Prince released “1999”, which many people might consider his true breakout hit album, with the title track and “Little Red Corvette” doing extremely well on the charts, and on MTV.

In 1984, Prince began to refer to his band as “The Revolution”, and its members were comprised of Lisa Coleman, Doctor Fink, Bobby Z, Brown Mark, Dez Dickerson, and Jill Jones.  When Dickerson left the group, Wendy Melvoin was brought in as a replacement.

TRIVIA:  Wendy Melvoin is the woman that plays the guitar next to a dancing Prince in the “Kiss” video.


I would say that 1984 was the year that Prince catapulted himself into a household name.  Not only did he star in the cult classic “Purple Rain” (which won an Academy Award for Best Original Song Score), but the soundtrack album of the same name sold thirteen million copies, had four Top 10 singles (including the #1 songs “When Doves Cry” and “Let’s Go Crazy”), and is ranked at #76 of Rolling Stone’s “500 Greatest Albums of All Time”.  I know that I own a copy of “Purple Rain”, and I’m sure that many of you reading this can claim the same.

With the success that Prince had with “Purple Rain”, many wondered if he would be able to have repeat success when he starred in the 1986 film “Under the Cherry Moon” in the role of a gigolo going by the name of Christopher Tracy.  After all, he was also doing the music for the film, which would be compiled in an album with the title of “Parade”.


Well, unfortunately for Prince, “Under the Cherry Moon” proved to be a dud at the box office.  Made on a budget of $12 million, the film only managed to rake in just a little over $10 million, resulting in a loss of nearly two million.  And, instead of winning Academy Awards, it won five Golden Raspberry Awards including Worst Actor, Worst Director (both of whom went to Prince himself), and Worst Picture.  Though, to be fair, the “honour” for Worst Picture was shared with the asinine “Howard the Duck”.


All right...so the movie was a disaster.  The film’s soundtrack album on the other hand...well, it did a lot better.  It didn’t quite match the success of “Purple Rain”, but it managed to sell enough copies for it to land at the #3 position on the Billboard 200 Album Charts.

I think “Kiss” was the main reason why the album did quite well.  As I said before, “Kiss” may not be my personal favourite of Prince’s songs, but I can admire the fact that it sounded a lot different compared to his earlier releases.  Whereas most of his songs were dominated by heavy guitar riffs and dance beats, “Kiss” was almost simplistic by comparison.  In fact, “Kiss” was actually a last minute addition to the soundtrack album. 


“Kiss” began as a minute long acoustic demo in late 1985, with just a verse and chorus fully completed.  He actually intended for the song to be recorded by someone else other than him, so he gave the demo to funk band Mazerati to be used for their debut album.

The group reworked the song, and recorded it in such a way that when Prince heard the demo, he was blown away by what they had done to the song, and decided to take the song back for himself!

(I would hope that he at least gave them credit for the song in the liner notes of the album.  I don’t have a copy of it handy on me, so I have no idea.  If anyone does know if they were credited, let me know in the comments section below!  J )

EDITED TO ADD:  Okay, after doing some research, I did discover that he in fact did credit the band for their backing vocals. 

Anyway, Prince re-recorded the song using his own vocals, added a guitar riff in between the second chorus and third verse, and added the song to the soundtrack at zero hour. 

Would you believe that Warner Brothers (the record company that Prince was signed to at the time) were not willing to release the single at all?  They believed that he should release “Mountains” instead (which eventually became the second single release from “Parade” in May 1986).  But, Prince refused to back down, and he ended up getting his way.  “Kiss” was released in February, and by the spring, became his third #1 hit.

The song also helped Prince add a Grammy Award to his growing collection (minus the Razzies, of course).  He won the award for “Best R & B Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group”, and was nominated for “Best R & B Song”.

The song itself is a frequent staple at many of Prince’s concerts, and it was recently placed on Rolling Stone’s list of the “500 Greatest Songs of All Time”, charting at position number 461.

Well...it’s still within the Top 500.

And, the song has since been covered by several artists...the most famous example being Tom Jones’ collaboration with Art of Noise in 1988, which can be seen below.


And, that’s what happened on February 5, 1986.