11,862 stories by "Trav S.D."
Another in our series of Christmas themed old time show biz posts… Not that it’s much talked about, but probably the most talked-about part of my new book Chain of Fools is…
Today is the birthday of late Robert Urich (1946-2002). About Vega$, Spenser for Hire or The Lazarus Man (or about any of a dozen of his other series) I have nothing to say; I ne…
 Another in our series of crazy Christmas themed posts… We’ll be writing quite a bit more about this lacklustre but once omnipresent police procedural series in a few days &#…
Today is the birthday of the great jazz pioneer Joe “King” Oliver (1881-1938), a cornet player and trumpeter often considered a sort of link in the chain between the legen…
Another in our series of Christmas themed old time show biz posts. Orson Welles and his company The Mercury Theatre present Lionel Barrymore as Scrooge in their radio version of Dickens&…
Another in our series of Christmas themed posts. This short by the Edison Company, released in December, 1912 and directed by Harold M. Shaw, is a contemporary riff on A Christmas Carol, wit…
We are pleased to present A Change in Brunch Plans, one of several silent comedy experiments we are making in connection with our new book Chain of Fools: Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from…
Another in our series of Christmas themed posts. This one used to be a sort of annual classic back in the heyday of Broadcast television. The Waltons was of course the long-running CBS show …
Another in our series of Christmas themed posts… Best known today as Mr. Television, Milton Berle had also had a flourishing career in radio since 1934. (And of course vaudeville. For …
All honor and reverence to the spirit of Joseph Grimaldi (1778-1837). Grimaldi expanded the part of “Clown” from the harlequinade portion of British pantomimes into a starring ro…
 Today is the birthday of the great film director Steven Spielberg (1946). Having already dispensed infallible wisdom on the subject of Spielberg in my reviews of War Horse, …
Today is the birthday of film director George Stevens (1904-1975). revered to day as the creator of such classics as Alice Adams, Gunga Din, A Place in the Sun, Shane, Giant, and T…
Today is the birthday of Leonard Maltin (b. 1950), well known as Entertainment Tonight movie reviewer, creator of Leonard Maltin’s Movie Guide and…a Three Stoog…
Today is the birthday of popular actor Richard Long (1927-1974). While I was to discover a lot of his early work later in reruns of The Big Valley and The Twilight Zone and his e…
Another in our series of Christmas themed old time show biz posts Now for your listening pleasure, the 1944 Christmas edition of The Kate Smith Hour with the special guest Jackie Gleas…
Another in our series of Christmas themed posts. We wrote about this seminal show of our childhood a few weeks back (see that post here). Now, in honor of the season, we share the Family Aff…
Another in our series of Christmas themed posts… And now for your evening delectation an early episode of Fred Allen’s radio show, his 1937 Christmas program entitled, “San…
Today is the birthday of Lucille Lortel (Lucille Wadler, 1900-1999). New Yorkers are the only ones who know her name, so New Yorkers are the only ones this morning going “Wha-? Lucille…
Today is the birthday of comedy babe Melanie Chartoff (b. 1950) — and while she has had rather a successful career as a sit-com and voice-over television actress (notably for close to …
I once cracked a joke to Peter O’Toole — and he laughed! It was when he was promoting the first volume of his autobiography, Loitering with Intent in 1992. I worked at a bo…
Another in our series of Christmas themed posts… Joan Davis was a major comedy star of radio headlining in a long string of her own shows throughout the 40s, and later starring in I…
Today is the birthday of progressive jazz piano player, composer/arranger and bandleader Stan Kenton (1911-1979). We mark the occasion in timely fashion with his band’s swinging …
Today is the birthday of Maxwell Anderson (1888-1959), one of the most successful playwrights this nation ever produced. While I bet you know his name, the odds are pretty good (I bet) that …
Last night I thrilled to brave a Superstorm of Santacon and Snowpocalypse to see Dandy Darkly’s Kiss Beneath the Camel Toe at the new Celebration of Whimsy (or “COW”)…
Today is the 100th birthday of the release of the hilarious Keystone comedy The Gusher. The Gusher is one of those films that Mack Sennett famously cooked up on the spur of the m…
