CHEERS to Bill and Michael in PWM, our Laramie, Wyoming-based friend Irish Patti and ...... well, each of you at Cheers and Jeers. Have a fabulous weekend .... and week ahead.
ART NOTES — a fifteen-year retrospective of photography works in an exhibition entitled Wendy Red Star: A Scratch on the Earth opens at the Newark, New Jersey Museum on February 23rd, through May 19th.
Wendy Red Star: opens soon in NJCHEERS to learning that a health care think tank has instituted an annual set of ‘awards’ — of the worst examples of profiteering and dysfunction in health care — named for Martin Shkreli, the price-hiking “pharma bro” (whom even Republicans love to hate) and mercifully is still in prison.
MEDICAL NOTES — while the country has a horrible record on gay rights, Uganda does have a much better record (compared to its neighbors) on palliative care— avoiding restrictions on prescriptions, import barriers and taboos about opiod use for seriously ill patients — plus, allowing nurses to prescribe liquid morphine: too weak to interest addicts, yet enough for the sick.
THURSDAY's CHILD is named Thor the Neighborhood Cat— who is the mascot of Waimate, New Zealand, taking a daily trip into town (and who likes tummy rubs) before heading home around 8:00 PM nightly.
Thor the Neighborhood CatPROGRAMMING NOTE — I will be travelling next Presidents Day weekend: and thus there will neither be a Friday post in C&J, nor my Sunday diary — will return the following week. (I do plan on a Thursday night Top Comments diary).
YUK for TODAY — I'm sure he'll decamp back to the GOP if-and-when it ever recovers .... but damn if that Rick Wilson doesn't make my stomach hurt with his Never-Trump one-liners (about the SOTU). Read the entire piece, money quote:
"It will be Soviet in its affront to reality; every promise has been kept, the beet harvest exceeds the Five Year Plan, and tractor production exceeds that of the decadent West".
WOTTA SURPRISE that Australia’s conservative party (officially called the Liberal Party, as in “classic liberal”) shows the same signs of sexism as the GOP: two members of Parliament either resigning or going Independent due to anti-female policies and acts, and with the party having a smaller % of female members than twenty years earlier.
FRIDAY's CHILD is a Essex, England kitteh … where smoke from a fire in an ink cartridge warehouse carried blue ink powder into the air, covering nearby gardens and causing local pets … to turn bright blue.
Essex, England blue catTHE OTHER NIGHT yours truly hosted the Top Comments diary with a look at ‘two gardens’ — the four incarnations of Madison Square Garden (with a fifth looming ahead) and the two Boston Gardens (there being a common link between them).
ON LAST NIGHT’s SNL — there was the excellent pre-recorded Women of Congress skit …. and in addition to the Usual Suspects such as Nancy Pelosi, AOC and high-profile names …. one was my four-term representative Ann Kuster (portrayed by Aidy Bryant) who is not that well-known. Interesting.
BRAIN TEASER - try this Quiz of the Week's News from the BBC.
Reader Suggested SEPARATED at BIRTH from Elwood Dowd — attorney general nominee William Barr and TV/film star John Goodman.
William Barr (born 1950) and John Goodman (born 1952)...... and finally, for a song of the week ...........................… no, this isn't a profile about a musician: but of a different type of entertainer, for whom music was only one way to entertain young people (of all ages). And it turns out that the ventriloquist Paul Winchell not only was the voice behind numerous cartoon characters, but also something of an avid inventor and activist: who led a troubled life off-stage, yet made his mark in many ways.
He was born Paul Wilchin in New York on December 21, 1922 - who contracted polio at age six but overcame both the disease and a speech impediment. He was obviously influenced by Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy - at age 13, Winchell appeared on radio doing impressions of Bergen.
By age 28, Winchell (present at the advent of television in 1950) appeared on TV with his sharp-tongued partner Jerry Mahoney - who was carved by Chicago figure-maker Frank Marshall. Later, the dull-witted Knucklehead Smiff was created by Jerry Layne. Both of these figures are in the Smithsonian Institute now (with two early replicas belonging to magician David Copperfield).
And over the course of the next three decades, Winchell with either (or both) of his sidekicks could be found on the tube: with Ed Sullivan offering him several chances to perform. Perhaps his best-known show was Winchell-Mahoney Time - which ran from 1965-1968 - and whose signature line was "Scotty, waddy, doo-dah".
Two decades later, Winchell won a $17.8 million dollar judgment against Metromedia TV for destroying tapes of those shows - and since Metromedia was later to become part of the Fox broadcast network ... well, that seems like a fair award to me.
Winchell was less known for his skills as an inventor - with 30 patents to his credit. Although it was only a crude early prototype, Winchell developed an artificial heart which he donated to the University of Utah. In addition, he worked on designs such as a flameless cigarette lighter and battery-heated gloves.
Always restless, in 1974 he graduated from the Acupuncture Research College of Los Angeles and practiced acupuncture. In the 1980's he testified before a Congressional committee with Ed Asner and Richard Dreyfuss, trying (unsuccessfully) to obtain financing for the Tilapia Project - a plan to cultivate production of the tilapia fish for undernourished people in sub-Saharan Africa.
In his later years, he became quite spiritual and ran a website devoted to the subject. He made a point of adding:
"It is essential to understand that true freedom of Religion must include … freedom from Religion."But perhaps his most-lasting legacy may be: all of the voices he provided to cartoon characters. These days - with LOL, IMHO and all of the other commonly-used computer acronyms - Winchell voiced the words to a much earlier acronym from the mouth of Tigger on Disney's Winnie the Pooh with "TTFN - TaTa for Now".
In addition, Winchell was the voice for numerous other cartoon characters - some include:
- the Siamese cat in Disney's The Aristocats ..
.. as well as Gargamel of "The Smurfs" ...
... plus Fleegle the Beagle in the "Banana Splits" ....
...and my favorite: as Dick Dastardly of the "Wacky Races" with his catch-phrases "Muttley: do something!!!!!" … along with this:
His 2004 autobiography Winch - which was released when he was age 81 - reveals a troubled and unhappy inner personality, with substance abuse and many, many, unresolved issues with his mother and ex-wives.
This caused a split with his children that lasted until Paul Winchell's death in June, 2005 at the age of 82. His daughter April - herself a voice actress - was among those hurt by the words he used against her mother. She wrote after learning of her father's death (which is no longer on-line), "If there is another place after this one, it is my hope that he now has the peace that eluded him on earth". But she has said she avoids speaking publicly about him - well aware that he brought many a smile to people's faces over the years.
w/Jerry Mahoney & Knucklehead Smiff … and Paul Winchell in his later years ...While not a musician, songs were an important part of Paul Winchell's TV programs. One popular tune he used was the 1927 tune (written by Howard Johnson, Billy Moll, Robert A. K. King) called I Scream for Ice Cream - and below you can hear Paul Winchell in his later years - along with Jerry Mahoney - "perform" a pre-recorded, lip-synched version (of which the audience was fully aware of)........ that's still nostalgic to watch.
Boola-boola sarsaparoolla, If you got chocolate we’ll take vanoola!
Oh, spumoni, oh, tortoni, And confidentially: we’ll take baloney!
I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream! Rah! Rah! Rah!
x xYouTube Video