Robert “Bobby” Bloom was born on January 15, 1946. In the early 60s he was part of the doo-wop group, The Imaginations. In 1969, he secured a contract to write and record a jingle for Pepsi. This jingle led him to success with his hit Montego Bay. Bloom also worked as a sound engineer. On February 28, 1974, Bloom died after he shot himself while he was cleaning his gun. Bloom was only 28 years old.
Montego Bay reached #8 on Billboard’s Hot 100 and #3 in the UK.
Eyes Wide Shut became director Stanley Kubrick’s final film; he died within a week of completing the final edit. The film is based upon the 1926 novella Dream Story by Arthur Schnitzler.
The film starred, who were a real life married couple at the time, Tom Cruise as Dr. Bill Harford and Nicole Kidman as his wife Alice. Alice reveals that she had contemplated having an affair which embarks the couple into a sexual game of one-upmanship.
To ensure the film’s R rating, Warner Brothers had to digitally alter several scenes. They have since released the uncensored version on DVD. Eyes Wide Shut holds another distinction: While filmed on an open production schedule, it ended up taking 400 days to shoot the entire movie. The Guinness Book of Records have recognized it as the longest constant film shoot.
In July 1999 (a few months after Kubrick’s death from a heart attack), Eyes Wide Shut was released to positive critical acclaim and has pulled in $162 million worldwide.
Eliminator was ZZ Top’s eighth studio album and remains the band’s most successful album with sales of over 10 million copes in the U.S. alone. Worldwide, Eliminator has reached Diamond certification in both Canada and the U.S.; 4 times Platinum in both Australia and the UK; 2 times Platinum in France; Platinum in Finland; 3 times Gold in Germany and Gold certification in Austria.
Critics adored the album, praising the songwriting and the band’s use of synthesizers. (ZZ Top had recently begun using synths on their previous album El Loco and wanted to expand that sound on Eliminator.) The album singles’ music videos were in heavy rotation on MTV during the 80s. In addition, Eliminator featured a customized 30s Ford Coupe on the cover and that same car was in their music videos as well.
Eliminator was produced by the band’s manager Bill Ham. The album’s five single releases were Gimme All Your Love (#37 on the Hot 100 and #2 on the Mainstream Rock); Got Me Under Pressure (#18 on Mainstream Rock); Sharp Dressed Man (#56 on Hot 100 and #8 on Mainstream Rock); TV Dinners (#38 on Mainstream Rock) and Legs (#8 on Hot 100, #3 on Mainstream Rock and #13 on Hot Dance/Club Play).
ABC Monday Night Football Electronic Game (Aurora, 1972)
In 1972, Aurora created an electronic game that allowed youngsters to play football. The game consisted of a plastic football stadium, 2 plastic players (a red and a blue), 2 plastic goal posts (a red and a blue) with offense and defense cards. The box featured Roger Stauback, a quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys.
Goldfish Swallowing (Late 30s through into the 40s)
Goldfish swallowing was a fad that swept through U.S. school campuses in which participants swallowed live goldfish.
In the spring of 1939, Harvard freshman Lothrop Withington Jr. was the first to start the craze. It is believed that he did it as a publicity stunt in an effort to further his bid for class president.
Sammie Lee Bush Jr. was born March 1, 1987 in Boynton Beach, Florida. (His father is the cousin of football star Reggie Bush.) Better known as Sammie, he started singing in his church. While attending a special arts program, he and two other boys started a vocal group “The Wonder 3.” They caught the attention of music producer and songwriter Dallas Austen who helped secure him a record deal.
In 1999, Sammie released his debut album, From the Bottom to the Top in March 2000. His debut single I Like It hit #24 on the Hot 100 (#8 on the R&B/Hip Hop chart). His follow up single Crazy Things I Do failed to hit the Hot 100, but peaked at #39 on the R&B/Hip Hop chart.
Taking a hiatus to focus on school, Sammie returned in 2005 with his follow up album, Sammie. The two singles, again, failed to hit the Hot 100, but were minor hits on the R&B/Hip Hop chart. A third single was to follow, but was never released.
Following the disappointing sales of Sammie, the young man released a mix tape in 2009 and has created his own label Star Camp Entertainment in partnership with Twenty Two Recordings. Sammie is currently working on his third album, Coming of Age which was set for release in the fall of 2013.
Born in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, Fred Rogers was a puppeteer who hosted Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood for 33 years.
At age 11, his parents adopted a baby girl to be Rogers’ sister. After high school graduation, Rogers went to Dartmouth College but transferred to Rollins College in Florida after a year. He graduated magna cum laude in 1951 with a degree in music composition — he put that degree to good use, composing over 200 songs for Mr. Rogers Neighborhood. During his senior year, he went home to visit his parents and fell in love at first sight — with his parents television. At that point, he decided he was going to be on TV.
His first job came two years later, in 1953, where he worked in programming for WQED in Pittsburgh, a recently launched community TV station. By the following year he was co-producing the program “The Children’s Corner,” where he introduced the world to his love of puppetry.
Rogers earned his divinity degree in 1962. In 1963 he made his first appearance as Mr. Rogers on a Canadian show “Misterogers.” He launched “Misterogers’ Neighborhood” back in Pittsburgh in 1966. Two years later his show was being broadcast by PBS almost nationwide. Rogers became the series producer, host and head puppeteer; also writing scripts and the music. Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood brought Rogers 4 Daytime Emmys, a 1997 Lifetime Achievement award from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2002 and Rogers was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame in 1999.
In 1968, Rogers also served as chairman of a White House forum on child development and the mass media and was often consulted as an expert witness on such issues.
In December 2000, Rogers taped his final episode which aired in August 2001. In December 2002, Rogers was diagnosed with stomach cancer. Despite having surgery for the cancer in January 2003, Rogers died in February 2003 at his home in Pittsburgh with his wife Joanne by his side.
Matilda is a five-and-a-half year-old super-nerd and a teacher’s pet. She does double-digit multiplication problems and reads Dickens! Matilda also has to battle her self-centered parents and most definitely against her principal The Trunchbull. Eventually, she must take on The Trunchbull when she defends her teacher Miss Honey.
Matilda was Roald Dahl’s third book. It broke all previous records for a work of children’s fiction in the UK by selling an incredible half a million paperbacks in six months! Matilda also won the Children’s Book Award in 1988. In 1996, a feature film starring Danny DeVito hit cinemas. If you fancy a trip to Britain, you could catch the musical, playing now.
Generation X is a cynical bunch and in 1993 Coke created a soft drink meant just for them. Unfortunately, for Coke, they let the guy who created their biggest flop (New Coke) to create OK Soda. (Hey, at least we know from this that Coke is into giving second chances.)
Sergio Zyman, a Coke marketing executive also created a non-traditional ad campaign in response to the fact that Generation X were a cynical, disillusioned bunch. He even gave the drink its own manifesto: “What’s the point of OK? Well, what’s the point of anything? There is no real secret to feeling OK.”
To give the cans and print material it’s distinctive, edgy look, Coke hired “alternative” cartoonists Daniel Clowes (Ghost World) and Charles Burns(Black Hole). Coke settled on the name “OK” based on their research that determined “Coke” was the second most recognizable word in the world, with “OK” being the first. Brian Lanahan, the then manager of special projects also stated to Time that they chose “OK Soda” because “it underpromises. It doesn’t say, ‘This is the next great thing.” It’s the flip side of overclaiming.”
Though OK Soda received a national media campaign, it was tested in select markets. This move was supposed to create buzz and demand. It failed miserably and life became much less OK for OK Soda when it died in 1995.
The strangest ad that Coke officially released for OK Soda? An ad that lauded how OK Soda tasted like “carbonated tree sap.” It’s hard to see why OK Soda failed, isn’t it?
This animated comedy series was from the same team as The Simpsons. Fry is a pizza delivery boy that gets cryogenically frozen accidentally. He awakens in the year 3000 and must adapt to life in the 31st century. He ends up working for his great-great (x20) nephew’s intergalactic delivery company.
The cast was rounded out with Leela, a cyclops and Fry’s crush; Bender, a beer guzzling robot; Zoidberg, a crustacean-like alien and Zapp Brannigan, a general who thinks he’s God’s gift to women.
Futurama has won 7 Annie Awards, 6 Emmy Awards, 2 Writers Guild of America Awards and 2 Environmental Media Awards. In 2010 at San Diego’s Comic-Con International, Guinness World Records named Futurama with the record for the “Current Most Critically Acclaimed Animated Series.”
For reasons unbeknownst to the rest of us mere mortals who are not Fox executives and against the wishes of the die-hard fans, Futurama was cancelled after five seasons. As the animated series Family Guy began to pick up steam, Matt Groening, the series creator of Futurama released several straight-to-DVD Futurama movies. Comedy Central revived Futurama from 2009, but, ultimately, cancelled the series in 2013.