Now I've Heard Everything

This is a somber anniversary in the Middle East. 40 years ago today, October 6th, 1981, the long time  president of Egypt, Anwar Sadat, was assassinated during a military parade. His killers were extremists who were outraged by his 1979 peace agreement with Israel, for which he shared the Nobel Peace Prize. Many other people who were on the parade reviewing stand that day or either killed or...

Just about everyone recognizes that music. It means for the next few minutes, you're going to be entertained by longtime favorites Like Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, or the Roadrunner. Helping create all of those iconic characters, and many more, was it brilliant animator Chuck Jones. Starting in 1933, Jones and his colleagues at Warner Brothers came up with hundreds of cartoons, including so...

It was on this date 66 years ago that one of the most popular, most durable, and most iconic situation comedies in television history was born. Taking place mostly in a tiny two room apartment in Brooklyn, The Honeymooners set new standards for television comedy. Captained by the comic genius of Jackie Gleason, the show also featured the versatile Art Carney, Joyce Randolph, and, of course, as Ral...

It's September 29th. And on September 29th, 1954, a young baseball player made a name for himself with a defensive play that to this day remains one of the greatest ever. It was the first game of the 1954 world series, between the New York Giants and the Cleveland Indians. Playing center field for the Giants that day at the Polo Grounds was the young Willie Mays. In the eighth inning of a tie game...

In 1935, a young actor, screenwriter, and dancer had an idea. He started a weekly amateur night competition at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, in New York City. And before long, Ralph Cooper and his amateur night at the Apollo became a major influence in Black Entertainment. Over the next five decades, Cooper's amateur night made hundreds of previously unknown performers into Stars. I met Ralph Coop...

Remember those ads in the back of magazines and comic books back in the day, promising to show you how to do tricks that will Amaze your family and friends? Well, fast forward to the 1990s, when magicians Penn & Teller starteealing a few of the old magician's tricks. And then, in 1992, they actually wrote a book of their own, called Penn & teller's how to play with your food. And that's wh...

If you were a regular viewer of NBC's popular soap opera Days of Our Lives in the 1970s and 80s, you know instantly who I'm talking about when I simply say Doug and Julie. Actress Susan Seaforth joined the cast in 1968, followed by Bill Hayes two years later. And 4 years after that, their on-screen romance turned into reality, when they married in real life. And while Bill and Susan Hayes have liv...

In the mid-1980s one of President Ronald Reagan's favorite speechwriters was the talented wordsmith Peggy Noonan. She crafted some of Reagan's most impressive speeches, including teone he delivered on the 40th anniversary of the D-Day invasion, as well as his televised message to the nation after the Challenger disaster in 1986. And then, working with the presidential campaign of Vice President Ge...

In the 1970s and 1980s, perhaps no one was more popular on Christian television than Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker. Founders of the PTL club, and later the Heritage USA Christian theme park, the Bakkers also espoused a Theology of prosperity. God wanted you to do well financially, they told us. But in the 1980s it came out that the Bakers were prospering a little bit too much off of the donations thei...

Recently the 20-year war in Afghanistan came to an end. Have his given all of us time to reflect on those two decades. We also remember the 23 hundred or so US servicemen and women who died in Afghanistan. One of them, in particular, drew public attention. Then-27 year-old Army Ranger, and former NFL star, Pat Tillman was killed in 2004. But that tragedy was compounded when the Pentagon apparently...

Fifty years ago this week, NBC TV introduced America to four young men who would change the way music and television interact. Looking to capitalize on the humongous an ongoing success of th Beatles and so many other groups,NBC assembled a team of four actors who also happened to have musical talent: Mike Nesmith, Davy Jones, Peter Tork, and, of course, Micky Dolenz who, years before, actually sta...

On that terrible day 20 years ago, September 11th, 2001, countless Heroes emerged. Some wore police, fire, or military uniforms. Some will be forever anonymous. But many were just ordinary Americans. Like Todd Beamer, a passenger aboard United Airlines flight 93. Their plane was already in the air that morning when the other planes went into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. And as the pass...

The NFL regular season kicks off tomorrow night, September 9th, at the Dallas Cowboys take on the Super Bowl champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Now, for 29 Seasons, those cowboys were coached by one of the most successful coaches in NFL history: Tom Landry. He was, in fact, the first head coach of the expansion Dallas franchise, in 1960. He racked up 20 consecutive winning seasons with the Cowboys. Un...

Hope you had a happy Labor Day Weekend 2021.  Labor Day, of course, is the day set aside to honor the contributions of America's labor force. Most presidential administrations understand the need for a an advocate for at Workforce in the federal government. The position of labor secretary is therefore critical. At one of the most influential secretaries of Labor in recent memory is Robert Rei...

Got plans for Labor Day weekend? There's a good chance you will be taking part in a cookout, to end the summer. In fact, you may be the one in charge of grilling. So how do you know if you're doing it right? Back in 2009, acclaimed TV chef Emeril Lagasse Rock his talents to grilling, with a book called Emeril at The Grill.

There's a pretty fair chance that even if you only own a few books, one of them is probably a James Patterson novel. He's written 28 books in the popular series featuring detective Alex Coss. And that's just one of the series of books has James Patterson writes. He writes series novels. He writes stand-alone mystery thrillers. He rites books for young readers. He writes children's books. And he's...

Jennifer Granholm was elected Michigan's first female governor in 2002, and re-elected, to a second term, four years later. Her work to re-establish Michigan's recession damaged, Rust Belt economy caught the attention of leaders of the democratic party on the national level. Last December, then president-elect Joe Biden named her his energy secretary. In 2011, a few months after leaving the govern...

When he was still in his teens in the 1960s, Roy Firestone got an up-close look at Major League Baseball, as a spring training bat boy for the Baltimore Orioles in Florida. But instead of following that career path and becoming a bat boy the rest of his life, Roy Firestone cut into television. Starting in Miami, then moving to Los Angeles, Firestone established himself as a skilled Sports commenta...

Nien Cheng was born into a well-to-do Chinese family in 1915.  Her family was able to give her a college education, including post-graduate work at the London School of economics.  That's where she met her future husband. But the time she spent in Great Britain may have been a time bomb of sorts. In 1966, at the age of 51, Nien Cheng, by then a widow, was arrested and accused by the Chin...

One of the most bankable female movie stars of the last 50 years is also one of the most influential figures in Hollywood. And she got her big break when she was barely old enough o have a legal drink, 1 quickly becoming one of the most popular stars of the Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In show. It seems like everything she has touched has turned to Gold – or, should we say, Goldie. By age 25 she alr...

Today, August 20th, is National radio day. Every year on this day, we recognize the contribution that this hundred-year-old medium has provided four generations. For four decades, one of the most popular radio personalities in America was Garrison Keillor, Creator and host of public radio's Prairie Home Companion.  That live musical variety show was a Saturday evening fixture in millions of h...

New York governor, or more precisely, soon-to-be ex governor, Andrew Cuomo has certainly had a rough few weeks. In the face of a scathing report accusing him of sexual misconduct, Cuomo last week announced his resignation. It was a breathtaking fall from his Emmy award-winning performance during the pandemic in 2020. And now the political future looks very murky for a man once considered the futur...

Perhaps no one has ever had a bigger impact on an entire generation of children than Dr. Benjamin Spock. His book Baby and Child Care was published in 1946, just as the first baby boomers were being born. And his calm, reassuring tone quickly found an audience among new parents. Dr. Spock became the go-to guy for advice on child rearing. Then, in the late 1960s, Dr. Spock became known for somethin...

This weekend marks the 76th anniversary V-J Day, the day that the Japanese surrendered to the United States to end World War II. And the interview you're about to hear includes one of the most moving and poignant stories associated with that day. More on that in a minute... For the entire duration of the war, America's entertainers provided an invaluable service to their country, by putting on lit...

It's a rare privilege for an author to see, in their lifetime, the broad and deep social and cultural impact the one of their books has.  One of those who were so privileged was author Alex Haley. His meticulously researched 1976 book Roots, which traced his own family's ancestry from Africa, became not just a best seller, but a cultural milepost.  It awakened a new pride of family have...