11,729 stories by "Trav S.D."
I am of the generation that first knew Robert Young as the aged coot on Marcus Welby, M.D. and the spokesperson for Sanka (does Sanka even exist any more? It used to be the only decaf …
Today is the 100th anniversary of the release of the Keystone one-reel comedy Cohen Saves the Flag, directed and produced by Mack Sennett. Is it anti-Semitic? Star Ford Sterli…
Yet another post in celebration of the Thanksgiving season. This episode of Abbott and Costello’s radio show, entitled “Thanksgiving Dinner” originally aired November 25, 1…
Another post in celebration of the Thanksgiving Season. This Thanksgiving themed episode of the Burns and Allen Show originally aired November 22, 1951. For more on the storied background on…
Another in our ongoing series of Thanksgiving posts. Like many an old vaudevillian Red Skelton had a couple of modes. For Red, one was “nut comic”. The other was “hum…
Another in our ongoing series of Thanksgiving posts. This Thanksgiving themed show called “Things To Be Thankful For” was broadcast by Red Skelton on November 21, 1951, during th…
Another post in celebration of the Thanksgiving season. Here’s Fred Allen’s Thanksgiving themed episode from November 22, 1942 on the Texaco Star Theatre (later hosted by Milton …
Today is the birthday of the great painter and illustrator Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901). We celebrate him today of course as the great chronicler of the variety scene at Paris…
Today is the 100th anniversary of the release of the Keystone one-reel comedy Fatty Joins the Force, directed by George Nichols and featuring Fatty Arbuckle, Dot Farley, Minta Durfee, Edgar …
Another post in honor of Harpo’s birthday. This absolutely would have been my first exposure to Harpo Marx; ten years after he died, in a 20 year old re-run of I Love Lucy. The 1…
Another post in honor of Boris Karloff’s birthday. Not surprising that he was frequently in demand as a radio actor in the 30s and 40s, with his musical, rumbling, mysterious vo…
Another post in honor of Boris Karloff’s birthday. Amazingly I never heard of this show until recently; they play it on Sunday nights on ME-TV. This was apparently a show cooked up…
Another post in honor of Harpo’s birthday. I first had the privilege of seeing this one at Slapsticon a few years back. Made in 1925, Too Many Kisses is a silent romantic comedy …
For someone of my age (I grew up in the 70s and 8os) Amos ‘n’ Andy is both a bellwether and a lightning rod. It was used as short hand in public dialogue about race in repr…
Today is the birthday of John Swor (1877-1965). Like his brother Bert Swor, he started out as a blackface minstrel, performing in the companies of Lew Dockstader, Honey Boy Evans and others.…
I often do a lot of soul searching about why I am such a backward-glancing person, why my sights seem so rigidly set on the past. And the answer I often come up with is the event that happen…
Filed under: Contemporary Variety, Dance, PLUGS Tagged: Dolly Sisters, Ziegfeld Society
All of us too young to have been Baby Boomers or older missed a joke in the movie Grease (1978) and its sequel (1982). The casting of veteran Hollywood character actress Eve Arden as t…
Here’s another post in honor of Native American Heritage Month. Certainly the spark driving this series of posts is that I am part Cherokee. 1/64th, in fact, possibly more. It m…
Originally posted in 2009 Today is the birthday of Eleanor Powell (1912-192). This Hollywood hoofer paired off with the best of them (Ebsen, Astaire, Bolger) but always worked best whe…
Over the course of her long career, Mink Stole has been associated with many shocking projects, but the big shock about her new music CD Do Re Mink is how tasteful it is. After a…
Today is the birthday of Marlo Thomas (b. 1937). It may be ironic, but it’s likely that Ann Marie’s Quixotic attempts to be a successful Broadway actress in New York would have b…
Here’s Bing Crosby and co-star  Judy Garland in an episode from his NBC radio program which originally aired Thanksgiving week 1946. For more on the history of show business cons…
A few days ago we wrote a post about Raymond Dandy, a.k.a. Kri-Kri (see post here.) Today marks the 100th anniversary of the release of his film Kri Kri Domestico a.k.a. Bloomer Man…
Today is the birthday of Eagles’ guitarist Joe Walsh (b. 1947) Every so often I’ll do or say something and the Duchess will look at me and say “Who are you?”Â�…
