11,919 stories by "Trav S.d."
Today is the birthday of Stephen Crane (1871-1900). Most of us are assigned Crane’s best known novel The Red Badge of Courage in school to read. Today, I’d like to plug (as…
Today is the birthday of August Gerald Fowler (1888-1960). Apprenticed to J. N. Maskelyne, he started performing magic in English music halls in 1906. He specialized in manipulating watches …
Today is the birthday of Betty Broadbent (1909-1983). Born in Philadelphia, she was working as a nanny in Atlantic City as a a teenager when she met a number of tattoo artists and performers…
One last Halloween themed post in a series of many! In this 1965 episode of Bewitched Endora (Agnes Moorehead) wants Samantha (Elizabeth Montgomery) to go away with her to celebrate a tra…
 This just off the transom: "Reverend Billy and Church of Stop Shopping Music Director Neremiah Luckett Face One Year in prison and $30k Bail for Performance in Chase Bank". The sub-heade…
My sharing of the trailer from Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy (1955) may surprise readers who know how I feel about the films of Abbott and Costello. I include it because I think i…
Every Thursday in October, Turner Classic Movies has been screening the films of the incomparable Vincent Price (for my full appreciation of Price, go here.)  Seems like th…
Today is the birthday of the late, lamented John Candy (1950-1994). “There’s always a role for John Candy,” I used to say to my pals in the SCTV days, the thrust of my mean…
In honor of the day, we share with you the radio program many Americans were listening to just BEFORE Orson Welles’ famous War of the Worlds broadcast Halloween 1938…a Hall…
A better than average spook comedy featuring the East Side Kids, directed by William Beaudine, and featuring Bela Lugosi as a Nazi spy….but best of all, as the beautiful love intere…
And now another clip in celebration of the Halloween season, the classic skeleton dance number from the Our Gang Follies of 1936, produced by Hal Roach! To learn out more about show busin…
In this cartoonish fantasy sequence from Here’s Lucy, Lucille Ball and sidekick Vivian Vance are trapped in a haunted castle by her boss Mr. Mooney (Gale Gordon) who is actually qui…
It was bound to happen sometime and for in January 1968 it did…The Monkees aired a spook comedy episode. Lured to a Transylvania castle by a hot Goth chick, Davy is in danger of bei…
Filed under: Contemporary Variety, PLUGS, Rock and Pop Tagged: Volptuous Horror of Karen Black
In honor of the Halloween season we share this funny  Three Stooges spook comedy from 1943, which mixes elements of World War 2 espionage, some very hoary business concerning myster…
In observation of the Halloween season, another radio tidbit. In 1951 Bob Hope broadcast this radio version of his recent spook comedy film The Ghost Breakers for the Screen Directo…
Today (according to IMDB) is the 100th anniversary of the release of the Keystone comedy The Speed Kings, a one reel short starring Ford Sterling, Fatty Arbuckle, Mabel Normand and Barney…
Today is the birthday of that divine character Ruth Gordon Jones (1896-1985 — she shortened her name for show business). She wrote several autobiographical books, plus her early life w…
Best known today via Barbara Streisand's portrayal of her in the musical films Funny Girl and Funny Lady, Brice was actually rather unlike Streisand in appearance. Tall and ga…
In honor of the Halloween season we are pleased to share this classic 1934 Hal Roach spook comedy starring Laurel and Hardy. The Live Ghost is a classic “haunted ship” scen…
Of all the cinematic versions of Robert Louis Stevenson’s perennial horror classic (including the terrific Frederic March one with its pathbreaking onscreen transformations) the 1920 s…
As a premise, an Addams Family Halloween is kind of like Taking Coals to Newcastle, but there’s no such thing as too much Addams so it’s a ride we will gladly take. Dependi…
In honor of the 1920 Halloween season we share Harold Lloyd’s 1920 silent comedy Haunted Spooks, co-starring Mildred Davis. It’s a fairly ordinary spook comedy, with the requi…
Another Halloween themed radio tidbit. In 1945 Boris Karloff guest starred on the Fred Allen show. These radio shots seem to have been a lucrative sideline for him for awhile. The reco…
Originally posted in 2009 Grace Kelly's uncle Walter was one of the few unalloyed racists in big time vaudeville. While many, such as Al Jolson or Sophie Tucker may have put on b…
