Post Week in Review: Schallert, The Simpsons, and a Summer of Beer and Chicken Fingers
RIP William Schallert, 1922–2016
Just a month after we lost Patty Duke, her TV dad passes away. William Schallert died at the age of 93 last Sunday.
Now, this is the part of the celebrity obituary where I usually give a list of some of the TV shows and/or movies the person has been in, but if I were to do that for Schallert, it would take up the rest of the column. The man was in pretty much everything from 1947 until 2014, so I’ll just link to his IMDb page so you can read it for yourself. He received a Fulbright fellowship after graduating from UCLA and lectured at Oxford University, was a founding member of the Circle Theater, and was president of the Screen Actors Guild from 1979 to 1981. His wife of 66 years, Rosemarie Waggner (who acted under the name Leah) passed away last year. They had four sons and seven grandchildren.
I was hoping that one of the cable networks would have a tribute marathon for Schallert this week or next, but I can’t find anything. And then I remembered that there’s a tribute marathon for him that’s on every single day. It’s called “television.”
Homer Simpson Will Be Live This Sunday
Stephen Colbert has a running bit right now on The Late Show featuring Cartoon Donald Trump, an animated version of the presumptive GOP presidential nominee that he talks to. It seems like the interview is done live, not one of those situations where it’s either prerecorded or Colbert asks the questions live and via good timing the answers were animated and taped beforehand and appear natural. Colbert actually has a live conversation with him, and the animation seems to change depending on what Colbert asks. I don’t really get how they do it.
Something similar is happening this Sunday night at 8 p.m. on Fox. There’s a new episode of The Simpsons, and Homer will actually be live on the episode, answering questions from viewers via phone. They’ll do two shows, one for the east coast and one for the west. Apparently, it’s done by “motion-capture filming.” Maybe that’s how they do the Colbert segment, too.
If you’d like to ask him a question, call (888) 726-6660 on Sunday between 8 and 8:30 ET or 8 and 8:30 PT. You have to be over 18, but if you’re reading this, I assume you are.
Also at 8 p.m. this Sunday: an hour-long 60 Minutes tribute to Morley Safer, who retired this week after 46 years with CBS.
Coming Soon: Judy Garland on Tour!
If you were too young to see Judy Garland sing live, you’re in luck. She’s going on tour again.
Don’t worry, this isn’t some Walking Dead scenario, it’s going to be Garland’s hologram. It will be called “Hologram USA’s Judy Garland Hologram Tour“ and will debut in Hollywood and London at the same time in 2017. She was chosen via a poll that asked people which celebrity they’d like to sing again via hologram. I would have picked Frank Sinatra, but then I wouldn’t have put the word hologram twice in the name of the tour either.
Like Homer Simpson, the effect will be done partly via motion-capture technology. Unlike Homer, you won’t be able to talk to her.
This Summer, Budweiser Is America
I know it seems like this election season has been going on for years, but remember that we still have seven months before we choose a new president. Imagine how loooooong this summer is going to be, with the speeches and the TV ads and the two conventions. People might want to drink to get through it all.
And you can be patriotic while you drink, because Budweiser is renaming their brew “America” for the summer. They could have waited a while and come out with two different beers, one named “Donald” and one named “Hillary” (or “Bernie” if you think it’s not over yet). They could have figured out which beer was more popular and given us a prediction for what’s going to happen in November. Hey, that would be just as accurate a prediction as we’ve gotten from the media pundits so far this election.
The “America” name will only be on beer sold in the United States, so if you don’t live here, you’ll have to just to live with the old Budweiser name, at least until Christmas or so.
It’s Finger-Lickin’ Good (Literally)
If you’re going to create a product based on a slogan, I guess this seems like a natural. KFC has made a nail polish that tastes like chicken, and it’s called Finger-Lickin’ Good. There are two varieties that line up with their menu: Original and Hot & Spicy. Unfortunately, there’s no Extra Crispy version for those of you who bite your nails.
Maybe this will start a trend, and we’ll see nail polish that tastes like Ring Dings or Lay’s Potato Chips or Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. Budweiser should make a beer-flavored nail polish, though I guess that would lead to certain problems.
Space: 1969
The Gap has a new ad. You can probably see immediately what’s wrong with it.
Hi @gap. We're going to need to talk about this ad. Y'all know that the space shuttle didn't fly until 1981, right? pic.twitter.com/iTHBHPuwTx
— Miriam Kramer (@mirikramer) May 6, 2016
In a defense, The Gap responded to that tweet saying they didn’t mean that there was a space shuttle in 1969. The ad just refers to the year they opened. Uh-huh. I don’t buy that explanation for the ad, and I bet you don’t either.
It’s National Apple Pie Day
It doesn’t seem quite right that Apple Pie Day is in May — feels more like a fall or winter food holiday — but it’s today. Here’s a recipe for a classic apple pie, and here’s one with a twist: a cheddar cheese crust.
Today is also Friday the 13th. So try to avoid black cats, make sure you don’t walk under any ladders, and remember to count to ten before opening a jar of pickles.
Okay, I made up that last superstition, but it makes just as much sense as the other two, and maybe we can start a new trend.
Upcoming Events and Anniversaries
Governor George Wallace shot (May 15, 1972)
The Alabama governor, who famously stood in front of the University of Alabama to block two black students from attending, was shot and paralyzed by a busboy at a mall in Laurel, Maryland.
Bobby Ewing is alive! (May 16, 1986)
Dallas aired what is probably the most-hated plot twist in the history of television, but I kinda liked it. Even if it did mean the entire previous season never happened and Gary and Val’s son on Knot’s Landing was named after Bobby for no reason.
New York Stock Exchange founded (May 17, 1792)
I bet you didn’t know the NYSE went back that far.
Frank Capra born (May 18, 1897)
He directed my favorite movie — not just holiday movie, but favorite movie, period — It’s a Wonderful Life.
Christopher Columbus dies (May 20, 1506)
He wasn’t really the first person to land in North America, but he has his own holiday anyway.
Blue jeans patented (May 20, 1873)
The article of clothing it’s hard to imagine the world living without was invented by Jacob W. Davis and patented by Davis and Levi Strauss.
News of the Week: The Return of Scott Kelly, the Departure of George Kennedy, and the Sadness of Never Dunking an Oreo
Meanwhile, an American Hero Returns to Earth
On the night everyone was trying to figure out which candidate was going to win which state, following Twitter jokes about Chris Christie, and watching pundits argue on cable news, something else was going on that maybe we should have paid more attention to.
Astronaut Scott Kelly returned to Earth on Super Tuesday after spending 340 consecutive days in space aboard the International Space Station, a record for an American. Kelly also holds the record for total number of days in space for an American: 520.
Kelly was the perfect choice for this experimental mission because scientists can now study the effect that so many days in space had on Kelly’s body by comparing it to a similar body that was down here on Earth the whole time: his twin brother Mark.
RIP George Kennedy
Kennedy just missed making the “In Memoriam” segment of the Oscars that same night. Hopefully they won’t forget him next year, like they forgot Abe Vigoda in this year’s montage.
There are many great obituaries for Kennedy, and at least one that, well, has a rather insulting headline. I’m astonished they haven’t changed that.
By the way, it was reported this week that Jerry Maren, the last surviving Munchkin from The Wizard of Oz, had passed away at the age of 96. But he’s actually still alive. I guess you can’t believe everything on social media.
If You Have Harry Potter Books, You Might Be Rich!
It’s a safe bet that most homes have at least one copy of one of the many Harry Potter books. Go check, because they might be worth a lot of money.
Okay, the one you have probably isn’t, but rare books dealer AbeBooks says that some of the early edition hardcovers of the books can bring in anywhere from $6,500 to $55,000. If the books are signed they might be worth even more.
I bet J.K. Rowling has a lot of early editions. She should sell them!
Putting the “Fuller” in Fuller House
I consume so much pop culture — TV, film, books, magazines, music, the web, etc. — that I often get exhausted. There’s so much pop culture these days that I’m sometimes actually relieved when a TV show I watch is canceled or when it’s one I have no interest in. Hey, don’t have to worry about that one anymore! Such is the case with Fuller House, the reboot of the ’90s sitcom Full House that recently debuted on Netflix and has already been renewed for a second season. I had no interest in the original, so I have no interest in the new version. It makes me happy that I don’t have to think about it.
But I did come across an odd piece of information about the new show. I assumed that the “Fuller” in the title was a play on the title of the original show, showing that this is a continuation of Full House and now it’s “Fuller.” And it does indeed mean that, but did you know that it also refers to the fact that the married name of one of the characters (DJ) is Fuller? I didn’t either.
This reminds me of the time years ago when I found out that the “Grey” in the title Grey’s Anatomy was actually the name of one of the characters on the show. I thought it just referred to the medical book. I got so many nasty comments because I didn’t know that.
So I’m assuming The Price is Right is about the life and career of Vincent Price?
Like, Love, Haha, Wow, Sad, Angry
What do you think of the new Facebook “Reactions” emoticon buttons? Besides the Like button that everyone uses, you now have a choice of several other buttons, too, for those special posts when a simple Like isn’t enough and you want to express your anger, sadness, shock, or unbridled joy. Facebook users have been asking for a Dislike button, too, but that would just cause more trouble than it’s worth.
Of course, if you think Facebook has introduced the new buttons just to please you, well, think again.
The Return of Zubaz Pants
I didn’t even realize they had been gone, but Zubaz (pronounced “Zubas”) pants are back! The baggy pants with the colorful stripes were big in the early ’90s.
I saw the new commercial for the pants last weekend. What the announcer says around the 52-second mark and how the actors look on the couch really amuses me:
I don’t know what you’re wearing as you read this, but I hope it’s not uncomfortable and boring.
National Oreo Day
I have a big confession to make. This isn’t easy for me to admit, so I hope you’ll be understanding when you hear it and won’t judge me for my shortcomings.
I have never dunked an Oreo in milk. I am 50 years old.
This Sunday is National Oreo Day. You can celebrate by twisting them open and licking them, dunking them, or just eating them by the handful, but how about a few recipes? The official Oreo site has several, including an Oreo milk shake, cheesecake bites, and a frozen Oreo torte. You can also try these Oreo cupcakes. And if you really want something different, how about Oreo popcorn?
Maybe I’ll celebrate the day by finally dunking one of those black and white discs in milk.
Upcoming Events and Anniversaries
New York Stock Exchange founded (March 8, 1817)
In a 1914 article for The Saturday Evening Post, Will Payne explained why the start of World War I in Europe closed the New York Stock Exchange from July 31 to November 28, 1914 .
Bobby Fischer born (March 9, 1943)
The Atlantic has an interesting piece on how the chess champion’s life unraveled.
First Book-of-the-Month Club selection published (March 10, 1926)
The first book selected was Lolly Willowes, or The Loving Huntsman, by Sylvia Townsend Warner. The club is actually still around if you’d like to join.
Lawrence Welk born (March 11, 1903)
The Lawrence Welk Show was a staple in my home when I was a kid, and it had an amazing run, debuting in 1955 and ending in 1982.
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The storm, also called The Great White Hurricane, dropped 40 to 50 inches of snow in many areas from Maine to the Mid-Atlantic coast. Many people were trapped in their homes for a week, and even railroads and telegraph services were disabled.
Jack Kerouac born (March 12, 1922)
He wrote the classic novel On the Road in only three weeks (and on one roll of paper).
The Great War: October 3, 1914
From the Post October 3, 1914: A Post author gets swept up with Belgian refugees fleeing the advancing German army, Americans become desperate to get home, and tragedy jars the British awake.
The Refugees: A Night Among the Peasant Fugitives at Ostend
By Reginald Wright Kauffman
By October, many Americans caught in Europe when the war began had finally secured passage home. Among the eyewitness contributors in this week’s issue was the American author Reginald Wright Kauffman who painted a vivid picture of a Belgian resort town crowded with war refugees.
“When I left it, Ostend looked like the lakefront of Chicago must have looked during the great fire.
“Picture to yourself Atlantic City [with] three times its accustomed population … crowd them along all the pavements of all the streets, up the Boardwalk and down; toss them on to the beach — women, children and old men, some wounded, more ill, all robbed of their material possessions, and many robbed of the lives of those they loved best on earth!
“Do this, and you have Ostend as I saw it.
“I was in the midst of the refugees; and from that moment, wherever I went about the town, I remained surrounded by them. … I saw one young woman in a bedraggled wedding dress and was told that, her fiancé having been called to the front on the day before that set for their wedding, she had gone mad and insisted on wearing her wedding dress when she fled with her mother from the oncoming Germans.
I saw two graybeards with great crêpe rosettes on their hats, and they explained to me that they were mourners at a funeral in their village when the [cavalry] suddenly appeared; the coffin was hastily lowered into the grave and the entire funeral party took to their heels.
“I talked with a tottering woman of 25 whose husband had been called to the colors and killed in the first day’s fighting about Liege. She had with her a son of 5, who was staggering under the weight of his 18-month-old sister; another sister carried a basket as large as herself, and the mother had in her arms an infant that she vowed had been born to her on the roadside only 36 hours before.
“‘What will you do?’ I helplessly asked her.
“She made the sign of the cross.
“‘What the good God wishes,’ she answered.
A few yards behind her a girl, who might have been 18 years old, was lying where she had fallen a minute before. She was beautiful, with black hair and a creamy skin; and her face was very calm. A wound, some one explained, had reopened — a wound inflicted by a stray shot some days since. I bent over to speak to her; she was dead!
England Wakes Up
By Samuel G. Blythe
Meanwhile, Samuel G. Blythe, still in England, reported on how the news of the first major engagement of the war struck the British.
“At three o’clock on the afternoon of August twenty-fifth—three weeks after England’s actual declaration of war—the newsmen came up the street with red [placards], and the Londoners looked at them and saw, yelling at them in the biggest possible type:
‘Two Thousand British Casualties—Official!’
The men had fallen at the Battle of Mons, in Belgium, where the British army had vainly tried to stop the German advance toward France. The official casualty figure has been calculated as 1,600, which is still a staggering figure of dead and wounded. Much, much higher figures were to come in the months ahead.
On the day before there had been a dispatch saying that a few English soldiers, including an earl, had been wounded; but that was nothing. Of course, as the Londoners and the provincials viewed it, a few men, more or less, must be hurt in an enterprise of this kind. That was to be expected.
The news that two thousand British soldiers had been wounded, perhaps killed—casualties is an all-embracing word—fell on London like a bomb dropped from the sky. It shocked, surprised and stunned…
“They began to wake up. Two thousand British casualties! Why, it was only a day or two before that they had known that the British troops had been sent to the Continent.”
Taking the Cure: The Treatment of Americans for Europitis
By Corinne Lowe
Writer Corinne Lowe seemed to relish the sight of panicked Americans desperate to get a ship’s berth out of war-torn Europe. Her scorn for Americans seeking culture in the Old World was shared by the Post editors. In the coming months, they ran several articles and editorials that mocked Americans who had snubbed their homeland to pursue Europe’s quaint, continental charms.
“Picturesqueness! There is the Pied Piper who has led us children of the Western Hemisphere out of our cool verandas and comfortable homes, who has made us turn from the Grand Canyon in order to sit at a smelly café where we could see a Franciscan monk or a booted and spurred officer. …
“Undoubtedly the principal factor in this life of Europe was constituted by the officers. What strange compensating joy there has been, for the most of us, in the sight of a handsome Austrian colonel crunching his morning roll at an outdoor café ! One glance at those fawn-colored ‘panties,’ at that tidy little green coat, and those fierce mustaches, and I have seen a little New Jersey school-teacher crumple up in a rapturous colic. ‘Isn’t it too lovely!’ I have heard her babble. ‘That’s what we do miss in America — the color of it all.’
“In our bondage to this foreign ‘atmosphere’ we have gradually lapsed into the belief that the militarism of Europe has been carried on for the special refreshment of the American public.”
War and Business
By Will Payne
While the Post reported on the political and social aspects of Europe’s war, it never lost of sight of the impact it would have on American business. Will Payne explained why the outbreak of fighting 3,000 miles away had caused America to close trading on July 31, 1914 it wouldn’t reopen until November 28.
“In the United States the first violent effect of the war was the closing of the New York Stock Exchange. It is clear now that this step was inevitable; yet so little were people prepared for war — so little were the effects of war on modern business conditions really understood in advance — that 10 minutes before the Exchange closed many persons of ordinarily good judgment believed it would remain open.
“The most conservative estimate puts the amount of American securities held in Europe at four billion dollars. If the Stock Exchange remained open we should have to face the possibility of buying immediately, say, a billion dollars of foreign-held securities and paying for them, not in credits, but in gold. We could not possibly do it, [and frankly acknowledged the fact by closing the Exchange]. With no market to sell in, foreigners would have to hold our paper whether they wanted to or not.
“You may have heard somebody mention that this is the richest country in the world. So it is; yet its total fund that is practicably available for the purchase of foreign-held securities under conditions of July 31 is really very small.”
Step into 1914 with a peek at these pages from The Saturday Evening Post 100 years ago.
