I suppose I'm dating myself when I say I've watched Saturday Night Live from the very first airing. That was long before people called it “SNL”. You know, “back in the day” when the Not Ready for Primetime Players were in their prime. It's hard to believe that SNL celebrated its 40th anniversary this year.
Since I never stopped watching (even through those dark days when critics were calling it “Saturday Night Dead”) I've become a bit of a SNL trivia buff. In honor of 40 years of silly fun, edgy humor and unforgettable characters, I thought I'd share some little-known tidbits with you.
After 40 years, SNL is still funny, still edgy and still churning out crazy characters. I can't wait to see what they'll do for their next 40 years!
Ah…summer refreshments. Is there anything better? Ice cream, hot dogs, popcorn, milkshakes and Coca-Cola were summer staples when I was a kid. Not exactly high nutrition, but it was summer and we got away with lots of things we couldn’t get away with during the school year — like not eating our vegetables and chowing down on salty and sugary snacks and drinks.
My mom used to make homemade ice cream and my dad would stir up root beer floats in ice cold aluminum glasses. We had one of those old school popcorn makers, too. There was nothing like sitting down to watch our favorite sitcoms with a bowl of hot popcorn and a cold root beer float or a milkshake made from Mom’s vanilla ice cream and lots of chocolate syrup.
Of course, nowadays I can’t gobble down bowls of popcorn and wash it down with bottles of Coke and milkshakes all the time. But once in a while, I just have to stroll down memory lane and trade in my adult sensibilities for a decidedly unbalanced summer diet.
It’s 4th of July weekend — my favorite summer holiday! Not only is it America’s 239th birthday, it’s time to hit the road for a weekend of camping out, cooking out and setting off fireworks.
Camping on the holiday was a family tradition when I was a kid. The whole extended family would converge at a campground with tents, fishing poles, tons of food and boxes and boxes of fireworks. It was the one holiday where I’d get to hang out with my distant cousins without having to get all dressed up and sit at a holiday “kids table” trying not to fidget or spill anything on my good clothes.
Instead, my cousins and I were pretty much allowed to run wild. We could get as dirty and as sunburned and as worn out as we wanted. Nobody cared if we wore the same cutoff shorts for the whole weekend or didn’t comb our hair. And there was no kids table. We just plopped down on the ground to gobble down dogs and burgers while the adults sat at the picnic tables making jokes and getting ready for the fireworks display.
I guess I’ve always thought of Independence Day as a kids’ holiday because of those camping trips. Inner tubing, making s’mores, blowing up fireworks…to us it seemed (almost) better than Christmas.
Somehow, we’ve managed to kept the tradition going all these years. The family still gathers at the very same campground on the 4th of July. And even though we’re the ones sitting at the picnic tables instead of on the ground these days, my cousins and I feel far from grown up when we’re out there camping, fishing and celebrating America’s birthday.
If you are like most movie-goers, on this day in 1982, you were sitting in a theater watching—or standing in line waiting to watch—E.T., The Extra-Terrestrial. Steven Spielberg’s award-winning movie had it all: humor, drama, suspense, action, tear-jerking emotion, and of course, cute kids! It also had tremendous success at the box office, as the highest-grossing film of the year. Adjusted for inflation, E.T. currently ranks #6 on the list of the highest-grossing films of all time!
Who among us has not thought about what lies out there in the vastness of outer space? Do you believe that aliens have already visited our planet? Do you suspect, like Mulder & Scully, that other-worldly life forms are already among us? When you look to the skies, do you imagine an alien encounter to be friendly like Elliott and E.T., or frightening like the ones Rod Serling exposed us to in The Twilight Zone? What if you could visit the far corners of the galaxy with Rocket Raccoon—or even the near corners with a moon-bound astronaut? Would you rather confront a Wookie… or a Martian? Hold a Tribble… or a Gremlin? Or perhaps, you’ve HAD an alien encounter of your own? Anything is possible!
June 1st is the birthday of one of Hollywood’s most intriguing discoveries. In 1945, the US Army’s motion picture unit on routine morale-boosting assignment in a factory discovered young Norma Jeane Dougherty, hard at work inspecting parachutes. Something about this unrefined girl just sparkled, catching the photographer’s eye, who suggested she sign with a modeling agency. Her first glint of success on a magazine cover gave her the confidence she needed to pursue her destiny. She bleached her brown hair to golden blonde, took singing and dancing lessons, changed her name, and accepted numerous bit parts and non-speaking roles before hitting it big. Like an actual diamond, Marilyn Monroe went through much polishing before her true luster emerged. Her dazzling beauty and many-faceted personality left an indelible impression on Hollywood and the rest of the world. All things considered, could it really be just a coincidence that one of her most-remembered performances is her 1953 rendition of “Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend”?
Whenever I see the commercial for a popular energy drink that supposedly sends you skyward, I think about a recurring dream I had as a kid, where my sister and I could flap our arms really hard and fly—just out of reach—over the heads of our bewildered parents. The idea of flying through the air has always been so fascinating to me, and millions of other human beings like me! Way back on May 21, 1927, Charles Lindbergh became the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. Five years later, Amelia Earhart accomplished a similar feat as the first woman to make a solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean. These ground-breaking achievements opened up the skies in ways that could not have been imagined before then. Now, almost a century later, trans-Atlantic air travel isn’t just for the imagination. Not only can we enjoy fast and comfortable flights across oceans as passengers, but we can also experience what it’s like to actually pilot an aircraft. You can buy a flight simulator for your home for around $7000… or, if you don’t have that kind of money at your disposal, you can do what I did: download Google Earth’s Flight Simulator! Fly and chat with other “pilots” as you travel to any and every corner of the globe without leaving your time zone OR spending a dime. Best of all, no lost luggage!
When we were kids, most little boys, when asked what they wanted to be when they grew up, would respond with either policeman, fireman, or astronaut. Three very heroic professions indeed! In 1962, President Kennedy proclaimed May 15 as National Peace Officers Memorial Day, and the calendar week in which it falls as National Police Week. With everything that’s been in the news lately, it seems the perfect time to pay special recognition to the officers who put their lives on the line every day for the safety and protection of others. Join us as we salute our nation’s law enforcement, and other first responders, and thank them for their sacrifice. View a calendar of events planned for this week all over the nation at National Police Week.
