11,749 stories by "Trav S.d."
 Today is the anniversary of the release date of Harold Lloyd’s first feature: Grandma’s Boy (1922). Grandma's Boy has what I call the Dumbo plot: meek, coward…
Today is the 100th anniversary of the release of the great Keystone ensemble comedy Caught in a Cabaret, directed by Mabel Normand, written by and co-starring herself and Charlie Chaplin. Th…
Today is the birthday of the popular American comedienne Carol Burnett (b. 1934). I was chiefly a fan of her variety show (1967-1977) during its last leg, when she was truly the reigning …
Filed under: EXHIBITIONS & LECTURES, LEGIT, EXPERIMENTAL & MUSICAL THEATRE Tagged: Erte, mark York, Stephan, Ziegfeld Society
 Today is the birthday of Dorothy Sebastian (1903-1957). Originally a Broadway chorus girl and pal of Louise Brooks, Sebastian was in the 1924 edition of George White’s Scandals…
Today is the birthday of the great silent comedian Eric Campbell (1879-1917). This is one of those ones where I’m going, “I haven’t done a post on him yet?  How is th…
Today is the anniversary of the release date of the Laurel and Hardy short Below Zero (1930), directed by James Parrott with George Stevens as DP. In this comedy, the pair are a couple…
A good time was had by all at last night’s program at the Society of Illustrators entitled From the Borscht Belt to Seinfeld: The Evolution of Jewish American Comedy. It was …
Filed under: Music Tagged: Calamity Chang, Champagn Riot, Dandy Wellington, Gin MInsky
Filed under: Dime Museum and Side Show, EXHIBITIONS & LECTURES, Human Anomalies, PLUGS Tagged: Coney Island USA, Congress of Curious People, Morbid Anatomy
 Today is the birthday of Eugene Patton (b. 1932) better known to the world at large as “Gene, Gene, the Dancing machine”. Gene was a brief phenomenon of the late 1970s onÂ�…
Filed under: Indie Theatre, PLUGS Tagged: Wonderful Wizard of Oz Re-Imagined
Today is the anniversary of the release date of Mae West’s 1935 comedy Goin’ to Town. Goin’ to Town was Mae's first post-code feature, and it’s kind of a…
Sorry for that tiny photo — writers leave behind much smaller graphic footprints than do performers. Today is the birthday of Edgar Allan Woolf (1888-1943). Woolf was one of the best k…
Readers of this blog (indeed, any source on 19th century entertainment) will often come upon the name of the famous venue Niblo’s Garden. Some of the folks I’ve written abo…
Today marks the centennial birthday of the colossal, the stupendous, the unspeakably great low-budget cinematic impresario William Castle (1914-1977). This is a man to be celebrated. I be…
 Today is the anniversary of the release date of the still-popular Keystone comedy short Love, Loot and Crash (1915). People like to check this one out for two reasons. (A) It i…
 The only cooking show I ever cared a fig about was something I knew as The Cookin’ Cajun, a local New Orleans show (I think) that was broadcast nationally during the cable tv e…
 Hervé Birthday? Happy Hervday? At any rate, as if to either reaffirm or retract our last post (I can’t decide which) we write now to celebrate the late Hervé  Villechaize …
I and progeny had a great time over Easter weekend, with a day trip down to Philadelphia and a pilgrimage to a place I’d long wanted to visit, The College of Physicians of Philadelphia…
Today is the anniversary of the release date of the Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle short The Butcher Boy (1917). This unremarkable little short is nowadays somewhat unduly enshrin…
 Today is the birthday of Lee Tung Foo (1875-1966). Born in California, Lee was a Chinese American singer in vaudeville from the mid 1890s through around 1890. Lee was formally trained, …
Huzzah! Today is the release date of the landmark new DVD release The Mishaps of Musty Suffer. “Musty Suffer” was a screen character developed by vaudeville comedian Harry…
 Today is the anniversary of the release date of the great Wheeler and Woolsey comedy So This is Africa (1933), directed by Eddie Cline, written by Norman Krasna. Esther Muir plays…
 Today is the anniversary of the release date of the hilarious Laurel and Hardy comedy Me and My Pal (1933). Hardy is a rich young executive who has worked his way all the way t…
