Archive for November 26th, 2023

Obit watch: November 26, 2023.

Sunday, November 26th, 2023

Betty Rollin, journalist and author.

In “First, You Cry” (1976), Ms. Rollin dealt candidly, and at times irreverently, with her cancer diagnosis, which was delayed a year after she first felt a lump in her left breast. She wrote that her internist had dismissed it as a cyst, and that her mammographer had looked at the images and told her to come back in a year for another look.

…

In the book, Ms. Rollin wrote about her mastectomy, a divorce and the love affair that followed it, and her acceptance that her life did not end with the loss of a breast. Her frank writing in “First, You Cry” was part of a growing openness about discussing breast cancer publicly and the need for early detection, as was highlighted dramatically in 1974 when Betty Ford, the first lady at the time, spoke of her radical mastectomy.

…

Readers’ response to “First You, Cry” was strong. “The letters I loved were from women who had it, sending me their cancer jokes,” Ms. Rollin told The Times in 1993, when the book was rereleased. “That kind of laughter is my favorite thing — it’s such a diffuser.”
She added: “Somebody once said that I was the first person to make cancer funny, which was the best compliment I ever had. I mean, cancer isn’t funny, but if you’ve got it and if you’re able to make jokes about it, I think that keeps you sane.”

Marty Krofft. THR. Thing I did not know: Sid and Marty got their start in the 1950s doing puppet shows…adult puppet shows.

Marty joined his brother full-time in 1958 after Sid’s assistant left, and they opened Les Poupees de Paris, an adults-only burlesque puppet show that played to sold-out crowds at a dinner theater in the San Fernando Valley.
“Les Poupees took us from an act, Sid’s act, to a business,” Marty said. Shirley MacLaine was there on opening night, and Richard Nixon came during his run for president.
Les Poupees went on the road and played world’s fairs in Seattle in 1962, New York in 1964 and San Antonio in 1968. It featured 240 puppets, mostly topless women, and Time magazine called it a “dirty puppet show.”
After that, it was so popular, “we couldn’t even get our own best friends in the theater,” Sid said. It drew an estimated 9.5 million viewers in its first decade of performances.

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Pufnstuf‘s psychedelic sets and costumes were a big hit with college kids, and The Beatles asked for a full set of episode tapes to be sent to them in England. The look of the show prompted many whispers that the brothers took drugs (pot for sure, maybe LSD as well?), something Marty denied.
“You can’t do a show stoned,” he told The Hollywood Reporter in January 2016.
The Kroffts followed Pufnstuf with The Bugaloos (1970-72), the Claymation series Lidsville (1971-73), Sigmund and the Sea Monsters (1973-75) and Land of the Lost (1974-76), which spawned an ill-fated Will Ferrell movie adaptation released in 2009. Those shows were wildly popular in syndication as well.

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In “Lost,” which premiered on NBC in 1974, a family plunges into another dimension populated by dinosaurs, primates called Pakuni and dangerous lizard-men called Sleestaks. Like “Pufnstuf,” the show was about the family’s attempts to get home while navigating their strange new surroundings.
Episodes were written by seasoned science fiction writers like Ben Bova, Larry Niven and Norman Spinrad, and a linguist developed a language of sorts for the Pakuni.

Question: is Land of the Lost the earliest TV show with a constructed language? (No, don’t say it: according to Wikipedia, development of the Klingon language didn’t begin until ST3, so LotL precedes.)

Posted in 1970s, Books, Media, TV | Comments Closed

Firings watch.

Sunday, November 26th, 2023

Tom Allen out as head coach of Indiana. (“Sources say”)

Seven seasons, 33-49, and 18-43 in conference. Indiana lost their final three games and went 3-9 this season.

According to ESPN, Indiana will have to pay a $20.8 million buyout, since they fired Allen before December 1st of this year. If they had waited until next year, the buyout would have been only $8 million.

ESPN is reporting (“sources say”) that Dana Holgorsen is out at the University of Houston. I have been unable to find any backup for this on the HouChron website or the two local TV station websites I checked.

Houston went 4-8 in its inaugural Big 12 season, which included a loss at Rice in September and three straight losses to end the year. The Cougars finished 2-7 in the Big 12, with their wins coming in overtime against Baylor and on a last-second 49-yard touchdown against West Virginia.

31-28 over five seasons. The buyout is estimated at $14.8 million, but there’s an offset clause if he gets another coaching job.

Edited to add: the Holgorsen firing seems official now. HouChron

Edited to add 2: Some additional firing updates I ran across on ESPN. I’m just going to cover them quickly:

Terry Bowden gone as head coach of Louisana-Monroe. 10-26, 5-10 in conference, and 2-10 this season.

Frank Cignetti Jr. out as offensive coordinator for Pitt.

Dana Dimel out as head coach of UT-El Paso. 20-49 in six seasons, one bowl appearance in 2021, but 3-9 this season.

Posted in Firings, Sports | 1 Comment »

TMQ Watch watch.

Sunday, November 26th, 2023

Well. Well well well. Well.

We were, as a matter of fact, sitting in church this morning, waiting for the service to start, when we received an email.

Someone who wishes to remain monogamous anonymous has gifted us a one-month subscription to Gregg Easterbrook’s Substack.

Our first reaction was: we’d really like to know who this person is. Perhaps they will out themselves in comments?

Our second reaction was: what a kind and thoughtful present to kick off the season of giving. Thank you, masked man!

Our third reaction was: how are we going to work this? At the very least, we feel an obligation to do a TMQ Watch for each new TMQ going forward. Should we go back and do the ones from earlier in the season? That’s doubtful, because the temptation to view them through the lens of hindsight is very high. Also, we currently have two major projects we’re working on for the Smith and Wesson Collector’s Association, so we don’t have as much time as we would like.

But we will promise to TMQ Watch TMQ, starting with this coming Tuesday’s entry. And, even though it is only a month subscription, we will promise to TMQ Watch TMQ through his post-Superb Owl column, which should wrap up the TMQ season. Even if we have to pay out of our own pocket. (That is not to say that we will not accept another gift subscription for another month, but even if that doesn’t happen, we’ll take on the assignment anyway.)

Posted in NFL, Sports, TMQ watch | Comments Closed