Archive for July 11th, 2024

Brief sports notes.

Thursday, July 11th, 2024

I feel like I have to say something about the firing of Gregg Berhalter, since this is SportsFirings.com. Even though I hate soccer.

On a happier note, here’s a fun article from The Society for American Baseball Research: “You’re Out of Here: A History of Umpire Ejections”.

Yes, I don’t like baseball either. But I dislike it less than I do soccer, and a history of baseball ejections is the kind of weird thing that appeals to me. Much like Disco Demolition Night…

Obit watch: July 11, 2024.

Thursday, July 11th, 2024

Shelley Duvall. This is breaking, and the NYT is in “full obit to come” mode. I’ll link to that later.

Edited to add: NYT obit.

Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment. As noted, they own Redbox. They also own the Crackle streaming service.

Fun fact:

In April 2021, Chicken Soup for the Soul acquired the film and television catalogue of Sonar Entertainment. In return, Sonar will hold a 5 percent stake in a new AVOD network featuring its library. Through the acquisition, Chicken Soup now currently owns the North American rights to a majority of the Laurel & Hardy films and shorts, and most of the Our Gang library, as well as the holdings of the former RHI/Hallmark/Cabin Fever/Sonar outputs, and a majority of the Hal Roach library, all via their Halcyon Studios division.

They had filed a Chapter 11 bankruptcy petition (which would have allowed them to re-organize) but yesterday it was converted into a Chapter 7 petition, which is total liquidation. And it sounds like there was some sleazy stuff going on.

Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment had failed to pay employees and vendors for at least four weeks prior to its Chapter 11 filing. In court documents, HPS, the company’s top lender, had alleged gross mismanagement by the company. Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment chairman and CEO Bill Rouhana Jr., in a declaration supporting the bankruptcy petition, claimed that the company’s financial straits were in part due to “refusals” by its lenders “to live up to their obligations, resulting in asserted defaults and/or contractual terminations across critical content and service providers.”

I have seen reports that they were pocketing employee health insurance premiums, but not actually paying the insurers. Those are just reports, and the executives are entitled to the presumption of innocence. But if it is true that they weren’t paying employees, and weren’t paying employee health insurance…the kind side of me thinks those people should be in jail. The unkind side of me thinks that rope and lampposts are in order.

Edited to add: more from THR, concentrating on the RedBox part of the business, but including the accusations of financial mismanagement.

Benji Gregory. Other credits include “Amazing Stories”, “The Twilight Zone” (the 1985-1986 revival), and “T.J. Hooker”.

Playing catch-up:

Joe Bonsall, of the Oak Ridge Boys.

James M. Inhofe, Republican senator from Oklahoma and former mayor of Tulsa.

Brief historical note, suitable for use in schools.

Thursday, July 11th, 2024

Today is the 220th anniversary of the Burr-Hamilton duel.

Here’s a fairly good article about the pistols.

Fun fact that I did not know until a few days ago, when I went looking for the video online: Michael Bay directed this commercial.