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Tuesday, July 08, 2014

July 8, 1958

Are you ready for another edition of the Tuesday Timeline?  I certainly hope so, because today's entry will begin in just a few minutes.  In fact, I'm going to be kicking off this edition of the Timeline with a little bit of a game to introduce this subject...

...well, right after we talk about other events that took place on this date, as well as some celebrity birthdays.

So, what happened in the history books on the 8th of July?  Lots of things!

1099 - Fifteen thousand starving Christian soldiers march in a religious procession around Jerusalem as Muslim defenders look on during the First Crusade

1663 - John Clarke is granted a Royal charter to Rhode Island by Charles II of England

1730 - Over 620 miles of the Chilean coastline is damaged following a tsunami caused by a magnitude 8.7 earthquake

1758 - French forces hold Fort Carillon against the British at Ticonderoga, New York

1822 - Chippewas turn over a huge tract of land in Ontario to the United Kingdom

1831 - John Pemberton (d. 1888) - the inventor of Coca-Cola - is born in Knoxville, Georgia

1839 - American businessman John D. Rockefeller (d. 1937) is born in Richford, New York

1853 - United States Commodore Matthew Perry arrives in Edo Bay with a treaty requesting trading

1885 - Fashion designer Hugo Boss (d. 1948) is born in Germany

1889 - The very first issue of the Wall Street Journal is published

1892 - The Great Fire of 1892 destroys much of the community of St. John's, Newfoundland

1932 - The Dow Jones Industrial Average closes at 41.22 - the lowest it had ever gotten since the Great Depression

1947 - News reports circulate about a UFO crash landing in Roswell, New Mexico

1968 - The Chrysler wildcat strike commences in Detroit, Michigan

1982 - Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is the subject of an assassination attempt in Dujail

1992 - Television drama "Melrose Place" debuts on FOX

1994 - Dick Sargent of Bewitched dies of cancer at the age of 64

2011 - Space Shuttle Atlantis is launched in the final mission of the United States Space Shuttle program

And, I want to wish a happy birthday to the following people; Irwin Hasen, Steve Lawrence, Janice Pennington, Jeffrey Tambor, Kim Darby, Raffi, Dale Hoganson, Wolfgang Puck, Anjelica Huston, Jack Lambert, Toby Keith, Joan Osborne, Rocky Carroll, Lee Tergesen, Billy Crudup, Michael Weatherly, Beck Hansen, Amanda Peterson, Kathleen Robertson, Jamal Woolard, Eric Chouinard, Sophia Bush, Jamie Cook, and Jaden Smith.

Okay, so now comes the fun part.  First, let's reveal today's Tuesday Timeline date.



Excellent.  July 8, 1958.  Great date.

Now let's get on with the game.  How many of you have heard of the game known as "Six Degrees of Separation".  I first learned about this game some eighteen, nineteen years ago when I was housebound all weekend because of horrible weather.  I watched a marathon of music videos on MuchMusic, and at the time they were having a sort of event where people who called in with the correct answers would win a prize.  You were shown three music videos, and you had to find the connection between the first two and then find the connection between the last two.  Some of them were easy to figure out.  Others were quite difficult.  But one thing that you could say for certain was that this game was based on a popular pop culture trend that has been going on since at least the 1990s.  A game that linked every single celebrity in the world to one man.

Would you believe that Spice Girl Geri Halliwell is two degrees separated from this celeb?  And that former American President Jimmy Carter is three degrees separated from this man?  And how about Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg?  He's four degrees from this man.

It's a phenomenon that people refer to as the Bacon Number.  The smaller the Bacon Number, the closer you are to him.  Don't believe me?  Well, let's have a look at Mark Zuckerberg's chart.

1.  Mark Zuckerberg is connected to Ehren McGherey via "Our Time".
2.  Ehren McGherey is connected to Johnny Knoxville via "Jackass:  Number Two".
3.  Johnny Knoxville is connected to Sarah Jessica Parker via "Life Without Dick".
4.  Sarah Jessica Parker is connected to
Kevin Bacon via "Footloose".



Yes, today we'll be celebrating the life of the only man with a Bacon Number of zero.  The man who has a last name that meat-eaters love.  Kevin Bacon is the spotlight of the Tuesday Timeline this week.

And, a very happy 56th birthday to the man, might I add.

I think that we could have a lot of fun with this blog entry.  In fact, why don't we make this whole entry a little bit of a game by doing random facts about Kevin Bacon's life and times by playing a few rounds of Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon!  Doesn't that sound like fun?

Okay, so how should we begin this?  Well, why don't we take a look at one of Kevin's first roles.  It happens to be a soap opera.  And, well...let's have a little bit of fun with this one.  Why don't we connect soap opera actors to each other to bring us back to Kevin Bacon?  In this case, we'll weave our way through daytime television to somehow link soap star Katherine Kelly Lang (Brooke on "The Bold and the Beautiful") to Kevin Bacon in just four steps.  Let's try it.

1.  Katherine Kelly Lang starred with Jon Hensley on "The Bold and the Beautiful".
2.  Jon Hensley starred with Hillary B. Smith on "As The World Turns".
3.  Hillary B. Smith starred with Jerry Ver Dorn on "One Life To Live".
4.  Jerry Ver Dorn starred with Kevin Bacon on "Guiding Light".



(Bacon played the role of alcoholic teenager Tim Werner from 1980-1981 on "Guiding Light".)

Okay, next degree.  We all know that Kevin Bacon's first big movie was 1978's "National Lampoon's Animal House".  But what was the movie that really made critics take notice?  Here's an easy one for you.  To find the answer, you need to connect "L.A. Law" actress Jill Eikenberry to Kevin Bacon in just two steps.  Think you can do it? 

1.  Jill Eikenberry starred with her husband Michael Tucker in "L.A. Law".
2.  Michael Tucker starred with Kevin Bacon in "Diner".



(And, if you click HERE, you can read the review that I did on that movie a year ago.  I can't guarantee you that the video clips will work, but it's still a good read.  At least, I think so anyway.)



Next trivia question.  You all know the story of how Kevin Bacon was cast in the movie "Footloose", about a boy who challenged the town's anti-dancing rulebook to bring the funk back into small town America.  You also know that the film was remade in 2011 which was not as good as the other one.  In two degrees, can you connect 2011 Footloose star Kenny Wormald to 1984 Footloose star Kevin Bacon?

1.  Kenny Wormald starred with Kim Dickens in "Footloose (2011)"
2.  Kim Dickens starred with Kevin Bacon in "Hollow Man".

(Remind me to do a blog entry on "Hollow Man" one of these Saturdays.  Really interesting film.)

Ready for another Bacon Number challenge?  This one is a tricky one.



The man pictured above is William Rufus Shafter.  If you don't recognize him, it's okay.  He's been dead for over one hundred years, taking his last breath in 1906 - fifty-two years before Kevin Bacon was even born. 

But here's the challenge.  Shafter is connected to Bacon.  His Bacon Number is SEVEN.  Can you do it?  I'll give you some Jeopardy music to think it over.  And, no doing the Bacon number cheat either!



I admit that was a hard one.  But, here we go...

1.  William Rufus Shafter and Joseph Wheeler appeared in "Surrender of General Toral".
2.  Joseph Wheeler and Russell A. Alger appeared in "General Wheeler and Secretary of War Alger at Camp Wikoff".
3.  Russell A. Alger and William McKinley appeared in "President McKinley's inspection of Camp Wikoff".
4.  William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt appeared in "President McKinley Inauguration".
5.  Theodore Roosevelt and Tom Brokaw appeared in "Food, Inc."
6.  Tom Brokaw and Ryan Reynolds appeared in "Definitely, Maybe".
7.  Ryan Reynolds and Kevin Bacon appeared in "R.I.P.D."!

(Okay, maybe that was a stretch, but it works.)

You know, all this talk about Bacon Numbers makes me wonder what my own Bacon Number would be...even though I've never really had any brushes with celebrity, I wonder how far removed I am from Kevin Bacon...hmmm...

1.  Matthew W. Turcotte met Jim Cuddy (lead singer of "Blue Rodeo") at the Clemency for Leonard Pelletier concert at Barrymore's in Ottawa in 2000.
2.  Jim Cuddy appeared with Levon Helm in "The Life and Hard Times of Guy Terrifico".
3.  Levon Helm appeared with Kevin Bacon in "End of the Line".



Wow...my Bacon Number is THREE!  That's so cool!  I didn't expect it to be so low, to be honest...even if I am stretching it a bit.

But you know, I suppose that when you've been in as many things as Kevin Bacon has been in, it's easy to see just how connected he is to the rest of the world...or at least the world of Hollywood.  He's been in some really huge movies over the years.  "Animal House", "Friday the 13th", "Diner", "Footloose", "She's Having A Baby", "Flatliners", "JFK", "The River Wild", "Apollo 13", "Sleepers", "My Dog Skip", "Beauty Shop", and so much more!  He's easily one of the hardest working actors in the business.  Why wouldn't he be so connected to Hollywood?

After all, his wife Kyra Sedgwick is also an actress (and Bacon Number of 1, might I add). 



And with him being a part of a band with his brother Michael (known as the Bacon Brothers), he's getting more and more connections with the music industry as well.

Kevin Bacon.  At the center of the whole Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon universe.  And today he turns 56!


Monday, July 07, 2014

Curved Yellow Fruits - and Other Grocery Blunders

Last week in the MOTIVATION MONDAY portion of the blog, I talked about something that had been bothering me for some time.  It wasn't something that I had planned on talking about in this space, but now that I have, I feel immensely better for it.  If anything, it was a cathartic experience because it allowed me to express my feelings for something that was once a part of my life, and it gave me the opportunity to have my final say in it all before I closed the book for good.  If anything, I encourage all of you out there to do the same thing that I just did.  Look back on your life to one moment that started off great, but had a terrible conclusion or resolution, take hold of the great times, and put the nail in the coffin of the bad.  It helped me out tremendously, and I am certain that it will help you out too.

So, because I talked about a more serious topic the last time, this time my motivation is to make you laugh.  And what better way to make you laugh than with a series of pictures that feature some of the funniest signs that you've ever seen?

Yes, I've scourged the depths of the Internet to bring you the best of the worst signs that I think anyone has ever laid eyes on.  And, would you like to know where the inspiration came from?

Well, to begin this story, we'll have to go back about a month ago to June 7, 2014.  As many of you know by now, when I am not writing this blog, I work full-time in the electronics department of a retail chain.  And one of my duties at my job is to go into the menu of the pricing gun that we use and print off any price increases or reductions.  And for the most part, these price changes are fairly straight forward, and I can easily find the item.  After being in the department for a year now, it's gotten a lot easier.

But sometimes you have price changes come out of the printer and they just make you shake your head in complete confusion.  See what I mean.  This was an actual price label that came out of the printer that day.



Okay, so not only is the item one that you're not supposed to use...but apparently you will get charged almost eighty bucks not to use it!  What a bargain, no?

Of course, this is just one example that I found in my day job.  There are so many more examples to share.  And if you're into funny signs, today is your lucky day because there are some signs that I think are even more hilarious than mine!  And, just before we go on, I'd like to give credit to the following websites where I found these signs from - digdang.com, teen.com, carbonated.tv, Huffington Post, Funny Signs, Dr. Heckle.net, Funny Junk, EgoTV Online, U.S. Data Corporation, Engrish is Funny, WTHSigns.com, pophangover,com, Shut up and Eat, and rounds.com.

So, let's begin with the first place that most people choose to shop inside first...the produce department.  Oh, look!  Here's a sale on...



...curved yellow fruit?  Okay, here's a little tip for the person who designed this sign.  Those curved yellow fruits are called BANANAS.  They're a fantastic source of potassium and they go great with ice cream and chocolate sauce.  Oh, well...maybe that's just a fluke.  Surely they can't make the same mistake twice.



Long yellow things?  They do realize that they have a name, right?  Can't someone give a little bit of respect to the banana?



Sigh.  Maybe we should move on to the citrus fruits.



Well...on the plus side, if we add lime juice, grapefruit juice, and tangerine juice, we'll have our own version of Five Alive fruit cocktail.

Okay, enough with the fruit.  One of the things that I'm sure that most people do in a grocery store is try to find the best deals possible.  They do this by ad matching, or by clipping coupons, or by checking to see if deals are worth buying, such as this special offer.



Wow...three things for the price of three!  I certainly hope that last three means three dollars, because otherwise I'd feel like I wasn't getting a deal at all!  Good thing this looks like a spoof of an ad.  Oh well...maybe if I go the next aisle over.



Um...you mean, I have to pay MORE?  Why don't I just give the store my first born.



And, don't even get me started on this supposed deal.  I'm guessing that one of the requirements of making sale signs isn't knowing basic mathematics.

Okay, clearly this isn't working.  Let's go around the whole supermarket and check and see what else just doesn't sound right.



Okay, that sign would be absolutely fantastic and one hundred per cent correct - if there was actually a Starday and a Cometday on the calendar.  Actually, that might not sound like such a bad idea.  Being born on a Starday would be so much better than being born on a Monday.  Nobody likes Mondays...well, except me since I usually have Monday as one of my days off...

Ahem, where were we?  Oh, yes...next sign.



This is interesting.  I never pictured those to actually aid with preserving beauty and health.  If anything, I would think that too much of those "beauty aids" would cause irreparable damage to both.  But on the other hand, they do provide you with beer goggles, which supposedly makes everything look better.



Do I even want to KNOW what this store was thinking?  Though, if anyone has actually used any of these "supplies" at a picnic, more power to you, I guess.



Happy Mother's Day, Mommy!  I hope you like your present!  I picked it out myself with my own bare hands.  By the way, I love being your only child.  I love it so much that you must NEVER have another child ever again.  NEVER...



You better believe it's not butt!



You know, it's bad enough that I have the shopping cart with the squeaky wheel, that the one thing I wanted to buy is all sold out at the store, and that my coffee went up three whole dollars in price.  Now the butter is laughing at me!  Stop it!  Stop it, I say!!!



OH MY GOD!  They're having a ZERO PER CENT OFF SALE!  We have to go right now!  Can you imagine how much I'd get off of a bottle of olive oil?  I'd get...oh...wait a second...



Funny...I thought that it was Colorado that gave the go ahead to purchase that in stores.  I guess Idaho wants to get in on the action.  And not that I would know from experience...but isn't that an awfully low price for a bag that huge?



Um...what?



Um, WHAT?!?

Sunday, July 06, 2014

Katy Perry - A California Girl with a "Teenage Dream"

I don't know what it is about summer, but I'm finding that some of the greatest songs that have ever hit the top of the Billboard charts have done so between the months of July and September. 

Something tells me that the next two months of the Sunday Jukebox feature are going to be a lot of fun to write about!  In fact, I've already selected this week's summer smash.  And the good news for some of you who like fairly recent music is that this song is only four years old!

(Though, when I was doing the research for this song, I was actually shocked that it really was released four years ago!  I didn't even think it had been that long.  My goodness.  We're all getting old, aren't we?)



Anyway, I'll reveal the artist right off the bat.  We're going to be doing our music spotlight on Katy Perry.  I'm sure most of you have heard of her by now.  The now 29-year-old woman from Santa Barbara, California (who was born with the name of Katheryn Elizabeth Hudson) burst onto the music scene in 2001 with an album of gospel songs recorded under her birth name.  To think that it would take seven years and a name change before she would experience the sweet taste of success with the highly infectious (and controversial) single "I Kissed a Girl".

And she liked it!

Of course, this was back in 2008.  The song I've selected for the Sunday Jukebox spotlight came out in 2010.  Now, what was happening in Katy Perry's life right around the year 2010?



Ah, yes.  That was the year that she released her third studio album, "Teenage Dream".  And I'm sure that you've probably guessed by now that today's song comes from this very successful album.

And just how successful was "Teenage Dream"?  Well, let's just say that the album was quite the little record-breaker.  Some records previously held by other artists were tied, while others were dethroned.  Here is just a list of achievements that "Teenage Dream" has to its name...

- The album had FIVE #1 singles on the Billboard Charts, tying the record with Michael Jackson who first held that record with his 1987 album "Bad".
- Katy Perry became the first female artist in the Billboard Charts history to have five singles hit #1 from the same album.
- When the album was re-released in 2012 (under the title of "Teenage Dream: The Complete Confection") with some new singles added to the mix, it became one of three albums to have eight singles to reach the Top 3 singles on the Billboard Hot 100 (The other two albums were George Michael's "Faith" and Janet Jackson's "Rhythm Nation 1814").
- Broke the record previously held by Beyonce when "Teenage Dream" became the first album to have NINE singles top the Billboard Hot Dance
- Broke the record held by Lady Gaga for having the most consecutive #1 singles on the Mainstream Top 40 (if you add her 2009 single "Waking Up in Vegas").
- Spent a total of 69 consecutive weeks on the Hot 100's Top 10.
- Became the only artist to spend a total of over 52 consecutive weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 charts, beating out the previous record held by "Ace of Base" since 1995.
- The combined number of singles from "Teenage Dream" spent a total of 225 consecutive weeks on the Billboard 100 - easily shattering the previous record held by Michael Jackson, whose singles from his 1982 album "Thriller" only spent a combined total of 130 weeks.



Love her or leave her, you have to agree that "Teenage Dream" did achieve a lot of accolades, and deservedly so.  In fact, you may as well include me in the "love" list, as I definitely like most everything that Katy Perry has done.  I may not listen to a lot of current music these days, but I'll admit that I do enjoy Katy Perry.  At least the majority of her songs are happy and upbeat, and actually contain lyrics that are made up of mostly real words unlike other songs from other artists (even if the spelling on some of the song titles isn't one hundred per cent accurate). 

So, I thought that it would be a great tribute to a great album by featuring the song that kicked off the Katy Perry love train.  And it's a song that was at the top of the charts exactly four years ago this week.



ARTIST:  Katy Perry f. Snoop Dogg
SONG:  California Gurls
ALBUM:  Teenage Dream
DATE RELEASED:  May 7, 2010
PEAK POSITION ON THE BILLBOARD CHARTS:  #1 for 6 weeks



Ah, yes.  "California Gurls".  The song that celebrated the joys of Daisy Dukes, bikinis on top, and sun-kissed skin so hot you'll melt your popsicle!  This was the song that helped Katy Perry live out a teenage dream at the ripe old age of twenty-five years old!  And she had a little help from her pal Snoop Doggy Dogg Snoop Dogg Snoop Lion Snoop Whatever Animal He Decides To Be Today!  Together they made one of the most infectious summer hits of the twenty-first century so far, and for Katy Perry, it was a song that certainly allowed her to express her wild and vivid creativity.



Just look at the music video which is based off of the board game "Candy Land" - albeit a warped version of the game.  I don't know too many board games that feature gummi bears with an attitude, gingerbread men in tighty-whities, a naked Katy Perry sprawled atop a cloud made of cotton candy, and a bra that shoots out whipped cream as though it's going out of style.  But as a music video, it certainly was a colourful mix of imagery and art that blended well with the happy-go-lucky attitude that the song presented.

It certainly helped catapult the single all the way to #1 in the United States.  And, that's not the only place in the world where it became a #1 hit.  It also topped the charts in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Hungary, Ireland, New Zealand, Poland, Scotland, the United Kingdom, and Venezuela.

As for the story behind the lyrics?  Well, there's not that much of a deep explanation behind it.  Katy Perry herself was a California girl, and Snoop Doggy Dogg Snoop Dogg Snoop Lion Snoop Whatshisname also hailed from "The Golden State".  But how Snoop ended up becoming a part of one of Katy Perry's biggest hits was an interesting tale. 

Would you believe that the online encyclopedia known as "Wikipedia" helped get Snoop the job on the single?  Katy Perry knew that since she was doing a song entitled "California Gurls", she really wanted a rapper from the West Coast, and Snoop stood out as being the guy that she wanted to work with the most.

TRIVIA:  I suppose you're wondering why the song has a misspelling in the title.  Originally, it was supposed to be titled with the correct spelling of "California Girls", but after the death of Big Star member Alex Chilton (whose band released the single September Gurls), the decision was made to alter the name of the single in tribute to Chilton.

So, you all know how the rest of the story goes.  "California Gurls" became a major hit for Katy Perry three months before "Teenage Dream" the album was released in stores.  The title track of "Teenage Dream" followed suit.  Then came "Firework", "E.T.", "Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.), "The One That Got Away", "Part of Me", and finally "Wide Awake".  Those mark a little over two whole years of music.  And with a movie under her belt as well as her 2013 album "Prism" still making its way on the charts (the latest single "Birthday" was released in April 2014), Katy Perry shows no sign of slowing down as she approaches her thirtieth birthday this fall.



I think that no matter what the future holds for Katy Perry, one thing you can say for sure is that this California girl made her teenage dream come true, and is now letting her colours burst whenever she can.

No, that wasn't awkward at all, was it?  

Saturday, July 05, 2014

The Jungle Book

For today's edition of "Saturday Night at the Movies", I thought that I would talk about a movie that I absolutely loved as a kid.  And, I purposely waited until the store that I work at had their annual summer blowout sale on DVD's and Blu-Ray movies.

Seriously, how the Walt Disney company can justify charging over thirty dollars for a movie that was released over four decades ago, I'll never understand.  Sure, they're excellent movies, but would I pay $30 for an older film?  Not in this lifetime!

Ahem...rant against Disney pricing and merchandising over.

Anyway, I'll tell you a little bit about how I ended up watching this movie for the first time.  I was eleven years old, and I was very much obsessed with Disney movies at that time.  Problem was that I could only afford to rent them, as VHS copies of the Disney movies at that time were over thirty bucks!

Seriously, Disney.  What was up with that?

Anyway, I had just finished watching a marathon of "The Little Mermaid", "Dumbo", "Peter Pan", and "The Rescuers Down Under" (which at the time was the newest movie to be released on VHS).  The next movie in the list was a film that was originally released in 1967.  It was a movie that took place in a jungle setting and featured a whole cast of animals who lived in the jungle.

One thing I didn't realize was that quite a few of these characters that appeared in this movie also appeared in one of my favourite cartoons at the time.

At that time, I was so into Disney movies that I would watch the cartoon block known as "The Disney Afternoon" every Saturday between the hours of 3:00pm until 6:00pm.  That was what we all watched before cable channels such as "The Disney Channel" and "Disney Jr." existed, and it was the only place where you could watch "Darkwing Duck", "Chip and Dale's Rescue Rangers", and "Goof Troop".



And, "Tale Spin", might I add. 

You see, I didn't know this until I had started watching this movie, but "Tale Spin" was inspired by the jungle film.  I admit it was kind of weird seeing Baloo, Louie, and Shere Khan appearing in the movie, knowing that they also appeared in "Tale Spin".  Though, to be fair, in the movie, Baloo didn't fly a plane, Louie didn't run a bar, and Shere Khan didn't wear custom made Italian suits.  They just acted like the jungle creatures that they were.

And when a little boy named Mowgli was dropped into the fold, it caused a little bit of a kerfuffle, and was the catalyst behind the events of the movie that would come to be known as...



"The Jungle Book"!

Based on the classic tale of the same name by author Rudyard Kipling, "The Jungle Book" depicts the story of a young boy left abandoned in the jungle and raised by wolves, and the struggles that come from living a life entirely in the jungle - especially when you never know what dangers may lurk.



This film was the very last film that Walt Disney himself had produced.  He died in December 1966 - just ten months before the film's October 1967 debut.  And one of the things that Disney did was change the film's tone to make it different from Kipling's version.  Initially the film was supposed to be a lot darker than originally presented, but Walt Disney insisted that the film be family-friendly, which lead to the dismissal of a writer and music composer.

The end result was a film that was well-received, and it was a film that became a Disney classic...but I do have to wonder what the original version would have been like.  I guess some things we'll never really know.



So, the story of "The Jungle Book" goes like this.  Mowgli (voiced by Bruce Reitherman - the son of director Wolfgang Reitherman) is discovered in a basket in the middle of an Indian jungle by Bagheera, a black panther (Sebastian Cabot).  And, Bagheera, knowing full well that a human could never survive in the jungle alone, decides to leave him in the care of a young mother wolf who just gave birth to several babies.  And so for the first ten years of Mowgli's life, he is raised as a wolf and becomes extremely close to his wolf brothers and sisters.

And, I'm sure that Mowgli would have stayed in the jungle for the rest of his life if he had the choice.  Unfortunately, fate had a way of causing everything to be flipped around and turned upside-down.



Enter Shere Khan.  A Bengal Tiger with an attitude.  A tiger that would love to make Mowgli his next meal.  He was definitely a beast that you did not want to cross, and he was definitely the most feared jungle creature in India.  He had stayed away from the area for years, but when reports seep into the jungle that he is back and hungrier than ever before, the focus soon switches to making sure that Mowgli is evacuated from the jungle as quickly as possible. 



Luckily, Bagheera knows of a Man-Village that has people like Mowgli living there.  And Bagheera knows that the people of the village could protect Mowgli a lot better than the jungle creatures could if Shere Khan made a surprise appearance.  So, as a result of this, Bagheera decides to escort Mowgli to the village for his own safety.



Of course, the trip doesn't go smoothly.  Mowgli almost gets eaten by a giant python named Kaa (Sterling Holloway), joins the elephant patrol, and has a huge falling out with Bagheera which causes the two to be separated.  Mowgli crosses paths with the fun-loving, carefree Baloo (Phil Harris), and Baloo decides that he will prevent Mowgli from going to the Man-Village and will raise him himself.  Of course, a group of monkeys lead by King Louie (Louis Prima) abducts Mowgli because they feel that he can teach them how to make fire. 



Fire becomes a huge part of the climax of this story, might I add.  But, that won't come until the end of the film...which of course I won't spoil for you.  But is it any wonder why Mowgli would become a little bit confused over who he is, and who he wants to be?  Bagheera wants to protect him.  Baloo wants to adopt him.  King Louie wants him to teach him the mystery behind creating fire.  And Kaa and Shere Khan want to eat him!  And you thought having to clean your bedroom was rough!

So, since I won't reveal the ending of this movie, how would you like a list of trivia facts regarding this movie?

1 - This film was more or less the movie that decided the fate of the Walt Disney Animation Studios.  If the film was a success, the studios would stay open.  If it had failed, Disney would have had no choice but to cease production.  I think you all know what happened next.

2 - In the movie, Kaa is an enemy who wants to eat Mowgli.  In the book, he's much friendlier with Mowgli.



3 - Towards the end of the film, there are four vulture creatures that look a lot like The Beatles.  It was planned for John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, and George Harrison to voice the vultures.  But Lennon's refusal to commit to the project forced Disney to hire other actors.

4 - According to the daughter of Rudyard Kipling, the name Mowgli is supposed to be pronounced MAU-glee instead of MOW-glee, and reportedly never forgave Walt Disney for the mistake.

5 - Interestingly enough, Bruce Reitherman - the voice of Mowgli - now works as a wildlife documentarian!

6 - The hardest part about the animation process of "The Jungle Book" was animating the stripes on Shere Khan.  Hmmm...maybe that's why they always put Shere Khan in a suit on "TaleSpin".

7 - The majority of the main cast was male - with one exception.  The role of Winifred the Elephant was provided by Verna Felton.

8 - Shere Khan's facial features were modeled after the man who voiced him - George Sanders.

9 - Kaa's song, "Trust in Me" was originally meant to appear in 1964's "Mary Poppins" under a different title.

10 - David Alan Bailey was originally supposed to be the voice of Mowgli...but he had to be recast when Bailey's voice began to change during production.

11 - There was to be an additional rhinoceros character named Rocky.  Frank Fontaine even recorded lines for this character.  At the last minute, the rhinoceros character was scrapped.

12 - As mentioned above, Walt Disney had to let go of a screenwriter when his vision of "The Jungle Book" didn't match his own.  That writer was Bill Peet, and that decision put an end to a 25-year-long working relationship between Peet and Disney.



13 - Composer Terry Gilkyson was also let go from the project.  Only one of his songs, "Bare Necessities", was included in the film.  That song was nominated for an Academy Award.

14 - Because of busy schedules, Louis Prima and Phil Harris had to record "I Wanna Be Like You" separately.

Friday, July 04, 2014

Barbecue Weather!

I have an announcement to make concerning the FOODIE FRIDAY entries.  It's not completely going away...but I am going to be making a slight alteration in how they will be presented.



Before I do that though, I want to issue a shout-out to all of the American readers who happen to be glancing at this blog today.  Today happens to be the American Independence Day - affectionately known as the 4th of July.  Can you believe that the United States of America is turning 238 years old today?  What an age!

Happy Birthday, America!  Hope you're celebrating in style with lots of fireworks and patriotism, just as we Canadians did three days earlier.

Now for the bad news.

Well, all right.  It's not completely bad.  I think this could be a good thing.

The truth is that for the last couple of months, I've been asking people to send in recipes for every Friday and that I would post these recipes online for people to share.  It was my idea to try and make this blog more interactive and fun for all of you reading this.

But unfortunately, I didn't get that many recipe submissions.  I only ended up with two in total.  I've tried filling the void by posting recipes from other sources, but the problem with that was that it was much harder to find recipes that were relevant than I initially thought.

So, it's come to today's news.  I'm suspending the recipe portion of this
FOODIE FRIDAY blog for the time being.  If I do happen to get some recipe submissions after today, I'll flex them into a future Friday posting.  But as of right now, today will be the last recipe posted in this blog for the time being.

So what becomes of the
FOODIE FRIDAY post?  Well, not much will change, actually.  I'm still planning of devoting a blog post to food related topics.  I just won't have a recipe.  It'll strictly be a look back at a food treat from the past that I enjoyed (or despised, if the case may be).  I might also talk about restaurants from the past, or events that typically have a lot of food associated with them. 

So, don't look at this as the end of something.  Look at it as a new beginning.

After all, America is celebrating another birthday.  And, while I'm not American, I do know one way in which Americans love to ring in the 4th of July.  Naturally, one of the signs of the 4th of July is looking up at the sky and seeing elaborately done fireworks displays sprayed across the sky.  Though you could also say the same for Canada's July 1 celebrations, or France's July 14 celebrations, or Mexico's May 5 celebrations too.



(Man, that's a lot of fireworks!)

But fireworks aren't the only way.  There's also the delicious, appetizing, mouth-watering smells coming from a propane or gas powered barbecue!

Seriously, any time during the summer is prime time for going outside and barbecuing whatever tickles your fancy.  I myself wish that I could do more barbecuing on hot summer days...but unfortunately I live in an apartment building where the people in charge have more or less outlawed barbecues and outdoor grills.  One day though...

I think that's why whenever I am invited to a barbecue and I have the free time to attend one, I jump at the chance to go.  I am a sucker for barbecued food, and it doesn't really matter what is on the grill.  I'll eat almost anything.

(Well, except veggie burgers.  I understand some of you swear by them and love them.  You can have my share, okay?)



Other than that, I am not fussy.  When it comes to barbecues, all foods get equal love.  One of the reasons why I enjoy going to RibFest every summer is because I love barbecued ribs.  To me, a perfect rib has the absolute perfect sauce, and I'm going to have to say that when it comes to ribs, my mom makes the world's best barbecue sauce. 

(And no, you can not have the recipe for my mom's barbecue sauce for two reasons.  One, it's a family secret.  And two, my mom never did quite measure exactly how much of each ingredient goes into her sauce, so it's quite literally not the same exact sauce each time.  But I suppose I can reveal that brown sugar is one key ingredient.  Use that information as you see fit.)



The sauce for the ribs could also be used for chicken as well, as I've always found that chicken tastes much better when it's barbecued as opposed to fried.  I'd even eat barbecued chicken legs, and I'm not usually a fan of chicken legs.  I've always been more of a breast man...so to speak.



And I suppose that you could use the sauce on a freshly grilled steak if you want, but it's a little too sweet to be used on a seared to perfection T-Bone steak or a New York Strip.  I would probably go with something bolder like A-1 Steak Sauce.  To be perfectly honest though, I could take steak or leave it.  It's delicious, but I wouldn't want to eat it every day.  Maybe more like once a month or something like that.



Hot dogs are also much better barbecued than they are boiled in water.  Have any of you ever tried a boiled hot dog lately?  Ick.  Oh, and my perfect hot dog is also one that is very simplistic.  I only have mustard on them.  Simple is best in that case.



And you know, even barbecued vegetables can be quite tasty.  Have any of you ever had the delicious summer treat known as the shish kebab?  They are to die for.  They are a mixture of cubes of beef or chicken and pieces of vegetables speared through a wooden or metal stake that you can eat right off the stick.  Just be careful not to burn your tongue on the stick, or chew right through it.

(For the record, my perfect shish kebab would include green, red, and yellow bell peppers and mushrooms as vegetables.)



Of course, no barbecue is complete without the classic hamburger.  I think that as long as I can remember, hamburgers have been the quintessential barbecue favourite, and whenever I had a choice, I would always grab a hamburger over anything else.  A well done burger with a little bit of cheese, ketchup, mustard, and Polskie Ogorki pickles (my favourite pickle) is perfection on a bun.

And certainly burgers have been a part of barbecues all over the world.  In fact, there's one soap opera that used to air that my grandmother, mother, and sister used to watch back in the day.



Do you remember the show "Guiding Light"?  It ran for nearly three-quarters of a century on radio and television between 1937 and 2009.  And one of the storylines that they featured every year was the famous Bauer barbecue which was held every 4th of July.  At the Bauer barbecue, couples were reunited, affairs were exposed, and the fireworks in the sky weren't the only ones that could be seen in the fictional community of Springfield.

But one thing you probably wondered was...how did they make that famous Bauer burger?  The ones that the people on the show couldn't get enough of?

Well, I did a little digging, and I found the recipe on the "Soap Opera Network" website.  I figure that this would be a great recipe to post before I put the recipe feature on hold.  Note, you can probably do this recipe without the onions if you don't like them.  As someone who hates onions, I'd skip that step too.


1. Get 2 lbs of ground sirloin, then mix in some garlic, pepper, salt and 3 teaspoons of Worcestershire sauce.

2. Make an even number of thin 
hamburger patties. (Be sure to make them very thin.)


3. Chop up some onion and put it on top of the first patty. Then put a slice of American or mozzarella cheese on top. Grill some 
mushrooms and put them on top of the cheese. Cover the whole thing with another patty. 


4. Using a fork press down the edges of the patties so they are sealed 


5. Barbecue the double patties over a low flame until done. It takes more time to cook due to the thickness of the patties.