Wednesday, January 31, 2018

Tuesday, January 30, 2018

And the Oscar goes to ...




Remember to watch the Academy Awards on ABC-TV on March 4th



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Monday, January 29, 2018

Saturday, January 27, 2018

The ACME Eagle Hand Soap Radio Hour (52)


Another page from the ACME Catalog -


Before our feature presentation, ACME would like to start the evening with a Daffy and Elmer Looney Tunes cartoon, the 1958 Robert McKimson directed, don't Axe Me :



This is the only time where Elmer Fudd is married; as all other cartoons depict Elmer (like other major characters) as a bachelor. .


It was Warren Zevon's birthday on this past Wednesday. As you my know, your old friend, the good doctor loves Zevon's music. The ACME Eagle Hand Soap Radio Hour wants us all to enjoy this concert from April 18, 1980, filmed at the Capital Theatre in Passaic, NJ. So grab a spot on the couch, absolutely smoke 'em if you got 'em, 'cause we're going to play it all night long (at least an hour and 20 minutes worth.)



Warren Zevon has been eligible for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for almost 25 year and yet, he has not been nominated. Push to have him included next year.



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Thursday, January 25, 2018

Dare to be honest and fear no labor.

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 22, 2018

Saturday, January 20, 2018

The ACME Eagle Hand Soap Radio Hour (51)

Another page from the ACME Catalog -


Before our feature presentation, ACME would like to start the evening with a Sam Sheepdog and Ralph Wolf Looney Tunes cartoon, the 1954 Chuck Jones directed, Sheep Ahoy :



This is the second short featuring Sam Sheepdog and Ralph Wolf. The character names haven't stabilized yet. The dogs here are Ralph (day shift) and Fred (night shift) or maybe vice versa (the names are reversed at the beginning and end); the wolves are George (day) and Sam (night).


Today is the the first anniversary of President Trump's inauguration. The ACME Eagle Hand Soap Radio Hour would like to celebrate the day by showing a double feature today of classic 50s Drive-in movies, in order to ease your worried minds. First up is the 1950 classic, Rocketship X M, one of the first science fiction films made after World War II.



This movie contained a sequence showing the consequences of atomic war on Mars, and how it had destroyed the once advanced Martian civilization. This is one of the first times a movie showed the dangers of atomic war, and might have actually been the first.


Everyone quickly run to the kitchen to get another bowl of popcorn and a drink. Our second feature today is the 1951 sci-fi thiller, Flight to Mars.



The suits that the Martians wear were leftovers from the film, Destination Moon, which opened a few weeks after Rocketship X M. The interior of the spaceship is the same one used for Rocketship X-M.



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Friday, January 19, 2018

Stupidity is a talent for misconception.

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.



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Monday, January 15, 2018

Sunday, January 14, 2018

Look for it



The woman looking into the window on the right hand side.

Perfect!



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Saturday, January 13, 2018

The ACME Eagle Hand Soap Radio Hour (50)

Another page from the ACME Catalog -


Before our feature presentation, ACME would like to start the evening with a Dodsworth the Cat Looney Tunes cartoon, the 1952 Robert McKimson directed, Kiddin' The Kitten :



The voice of Dodsworth was character actor Sheldon Leonard, who went on to produce The Danny Thomas Show, The Andy Griffith Show and The Dick Van Dyke Show.


On January 12, 1959, Berry Gordy, Jr., auto worker and sometimes song writer, borrowed $800 from his family's loan fund to start his own record label, called Tamla. A little more that a year later, Tamla and Motown was incorporated into Motown Record Corporation. The ACME Eagle Hand Soap Radio Hour would like to celebrate the birth of Motown by sharing a great show that highlighted the "Motown sound." On December 29, 1964, American International Pictures released the groundbreaking special, The T.A.M.I. Show (which stands for either, Teenage Awards Music International and Teen Age Music International). So kids, move the coffee table away from the TV and get ready to dance your pants off.

(Kid's, some of you have realized that this show is a rebroadcast.  Yes this was shown on our first episode of The ACME Eagle Hand Soap Radio Hour. Today is the one year anniversary of the series. Thanks for all of the private notes of congratulation.)



Of the 12 acts in the movie, seven went on to become members of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, including the Rolling Stones, the Beach Boys, Chuck Berry and the Supremes. The standout performance, of course, was James Brown. From his grand entrance to the famous cape routine and beyond, he delivers a full concert's worth of excitement in only 18 minutes.



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Friday, January 12, 2018

When will these guys get it right

Once again bunkies, you have to put an odd number of olives in a martini. Otherwise it is extremely bad luck.

I've found the test for a true friend: The correct measure of vermouth for a martini - pour out a half shot glass of vermouth. Have a friend drink it. Then have them breathe into your martini glass. Pour your perfectly chilled and shaken gin into it. The perfect bone dry martini.

Now, find your true friend.



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Thursday, January 11, 2018

There are no hard times for good ideas


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.



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Wednesday, January 10, 2018

A quick question:

Remember when we were young, and we couldn't wait to get older.  We could do what we want, whenever we wanted.


How's that working out for you?



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Tuesday, January 9, 2018

The finest steel has to go through the hottest fire.

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."



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Monday, January 8, 2018

Saturday, January 6, 2018

The ACME Eagle Hand Soap Radio Hour (49)

Another page from the ACME Catalog -


Before our feature presentation, ACME would like to start the evening with an Egghead (who would later evolve into Elmer Fudd,) Looney Tunes cartoon, the 1938 Ben Hardaway and Cal Dalton directed, Count Me Out :



This is the one of two Egghead cartoons directed by Ben Hardaway and Cal Dalton. The other was A-Lad-In Bagdad. The other 10 Egghead cartoons are directed by Tex Avery. (The jovial, laughing referee is voiced by Tex Avery.)

Remember today is the Feast of the Epiphany

The ACME Eagle Hand Soap Radio Hour would like to celebrate the Epiphany with one of the most significant debuts of an LP (that wasn't recognized at the time.) On January 5, 1973, Bruce Springsteen released his debut album, Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J., upon an unsuspecting world. Today we would like you to join us in giving the album another listen



The album only sold about 25,000 copies in the first year of its release, but had significant critical impact. It was ranked at #379 by Rolling Stone on its list of 500 greatest albums of all time. The album also hit the #60 spot on the Billboard 200 albums listing.


Keeping the tradition of getting one more gift during Little Christmas, The ACME Eagle Hand Soap Radio Hour has found a Fan-made (bootleg) copy of a Novenber 22, 2009 concert that Bruce and the group played Greetings form Asbury Park in it's entirety. Grab another beer (or cocktail), claim a seat on the sofa and enjoy:



Bruce Springsteen closed his Working on a Dream tour by playing Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J. in its entirety. "This was the miracle," he told the crowd. "This was the record that took us from way below zero to ... one." The performance was dedicated to former manager Mike Appel, who bullied John Hammond's secretary into giving his client an audition, and was in attendance. It was the last concert Clarence Clemons played with the E Street Band, before his death on June 18, 2011.



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Friday, January 5, 2018

Thursday, January 4, 2018

Monday, January 1, 2018

And now a word from our sponsor



May you and your family have a brighter New Year.

from your friends at ACME.



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