Tuesday, January 31, 2017

Saturday, January 28, 2017

Happy New Year (yet again)

ACME would like to wishes all of their friends and family a happy and healthy New Year!

Xin Nian Hao


Before our feature presentation, ACME would love to show you the 1958 Looney Tunes cartoon, Whoa, Be-Gone!



Eddie Selzer
, who had been produced all of Warner Bros. cartoons since September 1944, retired after the release of this short.


The ACME Eagle Hand Soap Radio Hour is proud to sponsor, in honor of of the New Year, today's film, The Soong Sisters - a 1997 film that is almost forgotten film today about the ambitious Soong family, whose three daughters helped shape the destiny of China in the 20th Century



Key figures from the Communist Party such as Mao Zedong, Zhu De and Zhou Enlai never made any appearances in the film, even though historically they played significant roles in the creation of the modern China.



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Friday, January 27, 2017

Three cheers, it's Thomas Crapper Day

Thomas Crapper died on January 27, 1910. In popular American folklore, the British Mr. Crapper was the man who invented and gave his name to the flush toilet. Unfortunately, there is little historical evidence to support Mr. Crapper as anything but a friendly British plumber.

I say unfortunately because the world is ambiguous enough as it is, and the toilet is one of a very few things that can be counted on to acquit itself without any ambiguity. Having a toilet in the home improves our quality of life enormously; the contributions of most other appliances pale by comparison. Like other vital but widely available amenities, however, a toilet’s importance is most strongly felt in its absence. Most of us have had at least one experience where we’ve made a hefty contribution to a toilet only to discover afterwards that it won’t flush.



Can you not remember the horror as you stared down into the bowl and wondered what to do? Can you not remember the icy panic that gripped you as you noticed that not only wouldn’t the toilet flush, but that the water was rising?



(The Germans have a word for that bone-chilling dread, and it reflects poorly upon us as a nation that we do not. The Germans also have a word for the feeling you get when you notice just as you’re locking your car door that the keys are still in the ignition. Clearly, they have more to offer the world than beer, pretzels, and maniacal plans for world conquest.)



The importance of toilets cannot be overstated, and anything that important deserves a good legend. Thomas Crapper may not have invented the toilet, and his name may not have been the source of our "crap" or "crapper," but that doesn’t mean we have to tolerate the truth. We can choose to embrace the legend of Thomas Crapper:



Thomas Crapper was born in 1839. He became a plumber. He invented the flush toilet, which is why people called it the "crapper," which eventually led to people calling the stuff they put into the toilet "crap."



It’s concise. It’s easy. It’s elegant. Reject the truth, and give thanks this day for Thomas Crapper.



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Thursday, January 26, 2017

Now she belongs to the ages

I’m an experienced woman; I’ve been around ... well, alright, I might not’ve been around, but I’ve been ... nearby.





Mary Tyler Moore R. I. P.



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Wednesday, January 25, 2017

There is no such uncertainty as a sure thing.

January 25, 1759 -
It's Robert Burns' birthday and people will be celebrating with a Burns Supper



The Burns Supper is eaten all across Scotland each year on the anniversary of the national poet's birth. It consists of haggis and whiskey. It is customary for the host to read Burns' Ode to a Haggis at the dinner table, presumably as a diversionary tactic.



The haggis are a gentle breed of playful mammals indigenous to the Scottish highlands. They have never survived attempts at transplantation. They have been popular cuisine for as long as the British isles have been populated. Julius Caesar reflects in his memoirs that he tried to bring several thousand haggis back to Rome for breeding after his conquest of Brittania - a controversial decision that eventually led to civil war in the Roman Empire.



The ancient Picts of Ireland invaded and eventually settled Scotland in no small part because of their affinity for haggis. The ancient Celts migrated in the opposite direction to avoid it. Haggis were traditionally trapped, killed, and prepared like most other small mammals. Toward the end of the eighteenth century, however, it became fashionable to drop living haggis, like lobster, into pots of boiling water.



This is because after boiling for half an hour the pelt peels off easily and can then be dried and used for in textiles. Haggis fur is especially popular in Scottish gloves, coats, and seat covers. I would like to bring some attention to the terrible plight of the delicate and sweet-tempered Haggis, whose inoffensive lives are too often ended by being boiled alive at the hands of a boozy Scot.



I used to think in the frigid atmosphere of political correctness, it was considered unfair to condemn the Scots for their grotesque maltreatment of these affectionate animals. To deplore their treatment of the haggis was to criticize their culture, and cultural criticism is an obscenity.

But Scottish culture? We're all grateful for whiskey, but is it enough to justify bagpipes and men in skirts? Has any other culture cried out so eloquently for condemnation?



According to People against the Indefensible Treatment of Haggis, more than eight million haggis were "ranched" for this year's festivities. Over six million of these ranch-bred haggis, beside whom veal calves might well be considered pampered, were sold to Scots who will take them home, boiled them alive, then skin and dismember them. The nearly two million not sold will be tossed alive into commercial blenders, mixed with fresh cream, frozen, and later sold as the popular Scottish summer treat, Haggis Ice. Try looking into the trusting brown eyes of a haggis and explaining that it must be boiled alive and ceremonially dismembered for the sake of Scottish culture.



This horror must end. To help bring it home to Americans, I ask you to take a moment to reflect on our own. Each February 2, we honor the prognosticative skills of that curious little creature in a vast national celebration of pagan superstition.



How many groundhogs die for this celebration? None. How many groundhog mothers are separated from their groundhog children in order to satisfy our national groundhog needs? None. How many grandfathers stand at the heads of their dinner tables, proudly presiding over the dismemberment of a steaming groundhog carcass?

The Scots could learn a thing or two about ethical animal treatment from us. We could probably also teach them a thing or two about trousers.



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Monday, January 23, 2017

Saturday, January 21, 2017

The ACME Eagle Hand Soap Radio Hour (2)


Another page from the ACME Catalog -


Before our feature presentation, ACME would love to show you the 1952 classic Looney Tunes cartoon, Duck Dodgers In The 24½th Century:



In animation historian Jerry Beck's 1994 poll of animators, film historians and directors, this cartoon was rated the fourth greatest cartoon of all time.


The ACME Eagle Hand Soap Radio Hour is proud to sponsor today's concert, The infamous 1968 The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus (which languished in a vault for over 30 years.) Filmed over two night, The Rock and Roll Circus was meant as a showcase for the elite in British rock, featuring the likes of John Lennon, Eric Clapton, Jethro Tull, and The Who (whose performance stole the show and was rumored to have been the cause of the show to be shelved.)


Watch The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus in Music  |  View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

(I am apparently having a problem embedding this concert; to view it, check out the link here.  Sorry about this.)

This was Brian Jones's last live performance with The Rolling Stones. He was kicked out of the band in June of 1969, a few months after the show was filmed, and died a short time later.



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Thursday, January 19, 2017

They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.

January 19, 1809 -

It's the birthday of the poet and short-story writer Edgar Allan Poe, born in Boston on this date. He was the son of two actors, but since he was Edgar Allan Poe, both his parents died of tuberculosis when he was just a boy. He was taken in by a wealthy Scotch merchant named John Allan, who gave Edgar Poe his middle name.

His foster father sent him to the prestigious University of Virginia, where he was surrounded by the sons of wealthy slave-owning families. He developed a habit of drinking and gambling with the other students, but his foster father didn't approve. He and John Allan had a series of arguments about his behavior and his career choices, and he was finally disowned and thrown out of the house. Sometimes, we all make bad choices.



He spent the next several years living in poverty, depending on his aunt for a home, supporting himself by writing anything he could, including a how-to guide for seashell collecting and picking the pockets of the dead at funerals. Eventually, he began to contribute poems, journalism and helpful cleaning tips to magazines. At the time, magazines were a new literary medium in the United States, and Poe was one of the first writers to make a living writing for magazines. He called himself a magazinist.

He first made his name writing some of the most brutal book reviews ever published at the time. He was called the "tomahawk man from the South." He described one poem as "an illimitable gilded swill trough," and he said, "[Most] of those who hold high places in our poetical literature are absolute nincompoops." He particularly disliked the work of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and John Greenleaf Whittier.

Poe also began to publish fiction, and he specialized in humorous and satirical stories because that was the style of fiction most in demand. Once again, remember this is Edgar Allan Poe - so, soon after he married his 14-year-old cousin, Virginia, he learned that she had tuberculosis, just like his parents, and he began to write darker stories. One of his editors complained that his work was growing too grotesque, but Poe replied that the grotesque would sell magazines. And he was right. His work helped launch magazines as the major new venue for literary fiction.



But even though his stories sold magazines, he still didn't make much money. He made about $4 per article and $15 per story, and the magazines were notoriously late with their paychecks. There was no international copyright law at the time, and so his stories were printed without his permission throughout Europe. There were periods when he and his wife lived on bread, molasses, and dust bunnies and sold most of their belongings to the pawn shop.

It was under these conditions, suffering from alcoholism, and watching his wife grow slowly worse in health, that he wrote some of the greatest gothic horror stories in English literature, including The Tell-Tale Heart and The Fall of the House of Usher. Near the end of his wife's illness, he published the poem that begins,

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore. While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door....



On October 7, 1849, Edgar Allen Poe was found in a delirious state (Maryland) outside a Baltimore voting place (saloon).



Mr. Poe was often found delirious, especially outside voting places, but this time his delirium was serious and he died.


... the lights are going out; but there is still time




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Wednesday, January 18, 2017

Posté sans commentaire -


This is one of the President-Elects favorite scenes from a movie





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Saturday, January 14, 2017

The ACME Eagle Hand Soap Radio Hour

Another page from the ACME Catalog -

The ACME Eagle Hand Soap Radio Hour is proud to sponsor today's concert, the famous 1964 T.A.M.I Show (Teenage Awards Music International.) Filmed over two night, The TAMI Show is one of the most incredible bills in Rock History, featuring the likes of Jan & Dean, The Beach Boys, the Rolling Stones, the Supremes, James Brown (in a career defining turn) and Smokey Robinson among others.



The Four Seasons were approached to be in this movie, but asked for too much money (they wanted $45,000 dollars).



Friday, January 13, 2017

Thursday, January 12, 2017

Wednesday, January 11, 2017

The boss knows how it is done; the leader shows how


Harry Gordon Selfridge was born on January 11, 1864. Though American-born, he is best known as the founder of the British store Selfridge and Co., Ltd (think Macy's, for those of you unfamiliar with the store). He receives little or no attention here in the United States. His name does not appear in any textbooks, he is not honored with any holidays, his image does not appear on any currency, and his biography has never aired on A&E (though it has aired on PBS). And yet Mr. Selfridge's philosophy has had more impact on western civilization than a dozen Aristotles.

His great maxim is uttered carelessly by a million voices every day, is enshrined in the halls of commerce and government alike, and has permeated our culture to the point where it has become a cliche. Like most successful ideas, we can hardly imagine that his concept was ever new or controversial; we must strain our imaginations to conceive a world unilluminated by his wisdom.



It was Mr. Selfridge's philosophy that "the customer is always right" and "give the lady what she wants" (this phrase might more have to do with the fact that Selfridge, a widower at the time, carried on scandalous affairs with Isadora Duncan, Anna Pavlova and not one but both silent film stars, The Dolly Sisters, simultaneously.)

This was an unorthodox, even heretical proclamation to the ears of nineteenth century merchants, who had been operating--like their parents and grandparents and scores of generations before them--under the assumption that the customer was an idiot who didn't know his ass from a hole in the ground.



Prior to widespread acceptance of Mr. Selfridge's theory, exchanges between merchant and customer often went something like this:

Customer: This is a terrible shirt. There's no hole for my head, the arms are too long, and it barely comes down over my shoulders.

Merchant: That's because it's a pair of pants, you jackass.

After the revelation of consumer infallibility, however, the same exchange was more likely to go something like this:

Customer: This is a terrible shirt. There's no hole for my head, the arms are too long, and it barely comes down over my shoulders.

Merchant: You're absolutely right, of course. Thank you for bringing it to my attention. You can rest assured we'll have our seamstresses taken out and shot.



Consumer infallibility changed the face of commerce because instead of producing goods and then trying to force them upon the public, merchants began appraising the public's needs and trying to provide products and services that met them. Merchants became less inclined to insult, spit at, or strike their customers, and more inclined to take them out to dinner.



This shift dovetailed nicely with the growth of political pluralism, which saw governments becoming more responsive to their electorates based on the premise that "the voter is always right." (It has been argued, however, that whether they are made love to or raped, most electorates still end up screwed.)



Mr. Selfridge's birthday should be celebrated throughout western civilization as a holiday of emancipation, no less significant than the signing of the Magna Carta, the drafting of the U.S. Constitution, or the invention of two-ply toilet paper.



And so it goes.

Tuesday, January 10, 2017

"Follow your hearts". We did, they were broken.


After a brief interval, Mr. and Mrs. Smith-Smyth-Smithe mourned the loss of their dreams and went on with the rest of their humdrum lives.


Monday, January 9, 2017

Solutions are not the answer.

It's the birthday of the 37th President of the United States, Richard Milhous Nixon, (born in Yorba Linda, California on this date in 1913. He had a childhood full of tragedy and disappointment.



When Nixon was 12, his older brother had a vision of young Dick's future and got a headache that turned out to be meningitis. He died a month later. Nixon said that he cried for weeks afterward. A few years later, Nixon's other brother caught tuberculosis and spent five years in a cut-rate sanitarium before he died. The cost of his treatment drained the family's resources, and Nixon had to turn down a partial scholarship to Harvard. He did get a full scholarship to Duke Law School, but he had to live in a one-room shotgun shack with no plumbing or electricity. He was forced to shave in the women's room of the Duke University library and bathe in a local bird bath.

Nixon's luck only began to change when he decided to join the military during World War II. Although raised a Quaker - morals never seemed to stand in his way. Nixon was interested in politics, and he knew that military service would look good on his résumé. One of the many things he learned in the military (besides compiling lists of his enemies) was that he was a fantastic cheat at poker. By the end of the war, he had earned almost $10,000. When he got back to civilian life, he used that money to fund his first political campaign.



He managed to win his first election for Congress, and he served as vice president under Dwight Eisenhower. Eisenhower suffered from heart problems and Nixon would try to entertain the ailing President by jumping out from behind the furniture shooting, "Boo" or "Oh My God, the Communists have begun bombing New Haven". Nixon was defeated for the presidency by John F. Kennedy in 1960 due in part to a perceived lack of personal hygiene. Then, in 1962, he lost a campaign for governor of California, and suddenly it seemed like his career was over. But just six years later, he was elected president of the United States.



His policies as president were surprisingly liberal by today's standards. He began arms control agreements with the Soviet Union and eased relations with China. He established the Environmental Protection Agency, expanded Social Security and state welfare programs, and he tried to create a national health insurance system.



The Watergate investigations eventually forced Nixon to resign in 1974. At his last meeting with his Cabinet in 1974, Nixon burst into tears.



He told them, "Always give your best, never get discouraged, never be petty. Always remember, others may hate you, but those who hate you don't win unless you hate them, and then you destroy yourself."




Friday, January 6, 2017

Small things start us in new ways of thinking



Remember, if you find the coin (or baby Jesus) besides having good luck for the upcoming year, you have to buy next year's King's Cake and if you celebrate it, throws a party on Candlemas in February.

After you finish celebrating, take the damn decorations down.



... The magi, as you know, were wise men--wonderfully wise men--who brought gifts to the Babe in the manger. They invented the art of giving Christmas presents. Being wise, their gifts were no doubt wise ones, possibly bearing the privilege of exchange in case of duplication. And here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house. But in a last word to the wise of these days let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest. O all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. They are the magi. - O. Henry



It's the Feast of the Three Kings, The Epiphany, Little Christmas, etc. The three Kings (Melchior, Caspar and Balthazar) represented Europe, Arabia and Africa respectively. If you're playing the home version of the game - the Gifts of the Magi were Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh (or the watch fob and a set of combs would have been an acceptable answer.)



We are loved by Love itself. There is nothing good that we can’t do. ~ Maya Angelou,



By an epiphany he meant a sudden spiritual manifestation, whether in the vulgarity of speech or of gesture or memorable phrase of the mind itself. He believed it was for the man of letters to record these epiphanies with extreme care (saving them for later use, that is), seeing that they themselves are the most delicate and evanescent of moments. - James Joyce



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Thursday, January 5, 2017

Christmas is nearly over



After tomorrow, you may begin to take down your decorations.



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