The Cellar - This Day in History

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What's the last 30 min sit com you saw where the main character threatened his wife with physical assault? While shaking his fist at her in close proximity.

Like I said, there are many reasons you couldn't make exactly "The Honeymooners" today. The iconic cast. The audience wouldn't accept black and white. The aspect ratio doesn't match today's TVs. It would now be a "period piece", when it was originally written as contemporary. And yes, the threats of assault for comedic affect.

But making a new "Honeymooners" today, all of those could be changed and retain the formula. The only real issue with changing it would be the cast. They'd be hard pressed to get one that worked as well.

Animation is another story, though. "The Simpsons" is a take on "The Honeymooners" formula, and while Homer doesn't threaten Marge, he does actually choke out Bart as a "pow, bang, to the moon"-style recurring gag. And "South Park" and various Adult Swim offerings regularly do worse.

Four-hundred eighty-six years ago today, King Henry VIII granted his future wife, Anne Boleyn, the noble title Marquess of Pembroke. Unfortunately for her, marrying a king did not help her get ahead -- or even keep the one she already had. - Alexa.

Apollo 7 - October 11th 1968

Fifty years ago today, the first manned flight of the Apollo program was launched.

Attachment 65192

Quote:

The Apollo 7 crew was commanded by Walter M. Schirra, with senior pilot / navigator Donn F. Eisele, and pilot / systems engineer R. Walter Cunningham.
Official crew titles were made consistent with those that would be used for the manned lunar landing missions: Eisele was Command Module Pilot and Cunningham was Lunar Module Pilot.
Their mission was Apollo's 'C' mission, an 11-day Earth-orbital test flight to check out the redesigned Block II CSM with a crew on board.
It was the first time a Saturn IB vehicle put a crew into space; Apollo 7 was the first three-person American space mission, and the first to include a live TV broadcast from an American spacecraft.
It was launched on October 11, 1968, from what was then known as Cape Kennedy Air Force Station, Florida.
Despite tension between the crew and ground controllers, the mission was a complete technical success, giving NASA the confidence to send Apollo 8 into orbit around the Moon two months later.
The flight would prove to be the final space flight for all of its three crew members—and the only one for both Cunningham and Eisele—when it splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean on October 22, 1968.
It was also the only manned launch from Launch Complex 34, as well as the last launch from the complex.

It's breathtaking that between October 1968 and July 1969 (Apollo 11) a total of five manned flights in the program were successfully completed.
Has there ever been such a time in the history of exploration?

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November 11, 1975

Quote:

Does any one know where the love of God goes
When the waves turn the minutes to hours?
The searches all say they'd have made Whitefish Bay
If they'd put fifteen more miles behind her
They might have split up or they might have capsized
They may have broke deep and took water
And all that remains is the faces and the names
Of the wives and the sons and the daughters

November 11, 1871

Quote:

Doctor Livingstone, I presume?

November 20, 1820

Call me Ishmael.

1947

Phil and Liz tie the knot.

50 years ago today, the first interracial kiss on American network TV is aired - between Captain Kirk and Lt. Uhura.

This is the kind of fact you can just throw out there during a lull in conversation at Thanksgiving Dinner.

Thanks, UT!

Add, when Nyota Uhura(Nichelle Nichols) tried to quit the show Dr Martin Luther King pleaded with her not to, so she stayed.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Undertoad (Post 1019366)

50 years ago today, the first interracial kiss on American network TV is aired - between Captain Kirk and Lt. Uhura.

I don't remember being scandalized by this at the time, but it's obviously a landmark moment in television history. It's been a normal thing in my mind since then.

It's weird to consider how tied-down network TV was back in the day.

I remember that the simple sound of a toilet flush was a wildly hilarious gag on "All In the Family", partly because it was so unexpected. I remember that most people think "Brady Bunch" was the first time a married couple was shown in the same bed (google research shows it wasn't the first, but that people thought that, just goes to show how rare it was).

This site has a nice short video about it and makes the distinction between first interracial kiss on TV and the first on American network TV:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/video/tune...ard/vp-BBPXUZh

It was the product of the people producing it, and what got produced was what the people paying for it, commercial purchasers, thought their customers would like/watch. Of course, there were some other synergies in play and it's hard to say what parts were chickens and which were eggs, but it seems clear to me that what we had available to us to consume was the product of those with means and agency, and they showed what they saw and lived.

One problem was, network TV was limited to what everyone in the goddamn country thought was decent, and what the FCC would take seriously when considering revoking licenses.