The Man of a Thousand Characters

 

Ed Benedict (1912-2006) was an American animator and layout artist best known for his concept work with Hanna-Barbera Productions. Benedict was recruited by former MGM animators William Hanna and Joseph Barbera in 1957 to provide character designs for their new animated television series, The Ruff & Reddy Show, and went on to create The Flintstones, Yogi Bear, Quick Draw McGraw, Huckleberry Hound, The Jetsons, and many others. Benedict left Hanna-Barbera at the end of the 1960s but did occasional projects for the studio. He created the animated character of Samantha for the opening of the Bewitched television series and later did background and layout on one of Hanna-Barbera’s final cartoons, Johnny Bravo. He signed many of his sketches with a cleverly hidden scribble, "EB," that was only visible to a select few at the time.

Cement by Moonlight

 

To honor Cleveland's WWII veterans, a stretch of highway was first known as the Memorial Shoreway, the first east-west freeway in Greater Cleveland. Known officially as the Cleveland Memorial Shoreway (a section of I-90), it closely follows the shore of Lake Erie and connects the east and west sides of Cleveland via the Main Avenue Bridge over the Cuyahoga River. The 1960 illustration is by Peter Helck (1893-1988). Best known for his automobile paintings, note his inclusion of a current model Buick and Ford Falcon. But the Ford Thunderbird, center, is not brand new as a 1960 model has six taillights. You may note the red 1960 Chevrolet left of center and the burgundy Chrysler product at the far left going in the opposite direction.

Founded in 1916, Portland Cement Association is the premier policy, research, education, and market intelligence organization serving America’s cement manufacturers. Headquartered in Skokie, Illinois, and Washington, DC., they have facilities in all fifty states. 

Reel Character Series

 

Ellen Drew (Esther Loretta Ray 1914-2003) was an American lead and supporting actress with a high-voltage contagious smile. The B-movie actress got noticed by actor William Demarest, who eventually helped her get into films. She started her career as Terry Ray, unfortunately, the same name as a male actor. She "won the toss" however and for the next twenty-five features, that was her professional name. She officially became Ellen Drew under her 1938 Paramount Pictures contract, thanks to the aforementioned Demarest. After a string of forgettable films, she moved to RKO in 1944 and co-starred in a few notable films such as Johnny O'Clock (1947), The Man from Colorado (1948), The Crooked Way (1949), and as a Technicolor blonde in the likable, Man in The Saddle (1951), looking more like a mashup of Celeste Holm and Betty Grable. Interesting but totally forgotten, she played Margaret Anderson in the television pilot episode of Father Knows Best (1954). Her television career was brief, mostly starring in the popular anthology series of the 1950s before retiring in 1961.

A Noted Television Theme

 

Simon & Simon is an American series that originally ran on CBS for eight seasons, 1981-1989. Gerald McRaney and Jameson Parker starred as two disparate brothers operating a two-person detective agency in San Diego. Nearly canceled in 1982 due to low ratings, it was given a second chance by the executive producer, Philip DeGuere. The new season began with a cross-over episode with Magnum P.I. and the show steadily rose in popularity garnering many fans along the way. Though canceled before the series could properly end, McRaney and Parker returned for a reunion television movie, Simon & Simon: In Trouble Again (1995). 

The first season theme song has a laid-back "Mariachi Band" feel. The rest of the series used the more popular funky rock theme which was more endearing for the series. Both themes were composed by Barry De Vorzon.

Season 1 Theme    Seasons 2-8 Theme

One-Third Cavalry Trilogy

 

On this date in 1949, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon premiered in Kansas City, Kansas. The technicolor Western film, directed by John Ford and starring John Wayne, is the second film in Ford's "Cavalry Trilogy," along with Fort Apache (1948) and Rio Grande (1950). With a budget of $1.6 million, the film was one of the most expensive Westerns made at the time and was a major hit for RKO. The film was stunningly shot on location in Monument Valley utilizing large areas of the Navajo reservation along the Arizona-Utah state border. Cinematographer Winton C. Hoch based much of the film's imagery on the paintings and sculptures of Frederic Remington. Hoch won the Academy Award for Best Cinematography, Color in 1950. The film's title takes its name from a popular US military song that is used to keep marching cadence.

I Did It My Way

 

'O Sole Mio  ("my sun" or "my sunshine") is a globally-known Neapolitan song written in 1898 by Eduardo di Capua and Alfredo Mazzucchi with lyrics by Giovanni Capurro. In 1921, William E. Booth-Clibborn wrote lyrics for a hymn using the music, entitled "Down from His Glory," becoming a popular gospel standard. In 1949 singer Tony Martin used the melody for his recording,  "There's No Tomorrow" with lyrics by Al Hoffman, Leo Corday, and Leon Carr. About ten years later, while stationed in Germany, Elvis Presley heard the recording and wanted new lyrics customized for him. It became his worldwide hit, "It's Now or Never." Legend has it when performing the song in concerts a few years prior to his death, Elvis would explain the origin of the song and have singer Sherrill Nielsen perform a few lines of the original Neapolitan version before commencing with his version.

Glowing Radium Highways

Radium is a radioactive substance found in nature and produced by the radioactive decay of uranium. The intensity of radiation from radioactive materials decreases over time. Discovered in the form of radium chloride, it was discovered by Marie and Pierre Curie in 1898. At the beginning of the 20th century, radium was a popular additive in consumer products such as toothpaste, hair creams, and even food items because of its supposed beneficial health properties. When they were found to have adverse health effects, such products were soon discontinued. Manufacturers used radium until the early 1970s in self-luminous paints for watches, aircraft switches, clocks, and instrument dials. Other than its use in nuclear medicine, radium has no commercial applications currently.

Note: This mid-Twentieth Century futurist illustration envisions glowing highways of a mesmerizing infrastructure project. However, the artist is accurate on one detail---the center console with a navigation screen.

Not Enough Exposure

 

Yashica was a Japanese manufacturer of cameras from 1949 until 2005 when its then-owner, Kyocera, ceased production. Original the Yashima Seiki Company, its initial eight employees manufactured components for electric clocks in Nagano, Japan. By 1953 they introduced their first complete camera and in 1956 the world's first commercially successful electronically controlled 35 mm camera, the Electro 35 (above). Its various model subvariants eventually selling 8 million units. The Yashica brand was a viable alternative through the 1970s. In 1983, Yashica Company Ltd. was acquired by ceramics giant Kyocera. Increasing market competition from other manufacturers, particularly Minolta, introduced competitively priced and advanced autofocus 35 mm SLR cameras. Yashica eventually introduced its own version but was overpriced and poorly marketed. In response, Kyocera gradually repositioned the brand as a budget-priced point-and-shoot camera line.

A Study to Harness Nuclear Power

 

On this day in 1955, at Carswell Air Force Base, Fort Worth, Texas, the single Convair NB-36H Nuclear Test Aircraft, serial number 51-5712, made its first flight. The NB-36 was built to test the shielding requirements of an airborne nuclear reactor and to determine the effects of radiation on aircraft systems. The reactor did not power the aircraft. The NB-36 made 47 flights with a total of 215 hours flight time. In the late 1940s engineers began working on an aircraft that could be powered by a nuclear reactor. The reactor would heat air to provide jet thrust, rather than burning fuel and air to do so. A 60-megawatt reactor was envisioned. Based on the test results, the entire project was canceled and the plane was scrapped at Fort Worth in 1958.

Richard Kimble's Brief Encounters

 

Eight months a fugitive, Kimble encounters Sandy Dennis, guest-starring as a young woman who wants a future outside her West Virginia roots. The doctor is fortunate she knows the region well enough to help him escape a sheriff's posse and the single-minded Lt. Gerard through a mine tunnel that exits on the other side of a mountain. But Dennis must remain "trapped" in her depressing world.

The Other Side of The Mountain, 1963
Frank Sutton, R.G. Armstrong, and Bruce Dern also guest star

From Tennessee to New Mexico

 

On this date in 1945, the Trinity Site, Alamogordo, New Mexico, became the location for the first detonation of a nuclear weapon. The Manhattan Project was the codename for the American effort to develop and test nuclear weapons during World War II. Run by General Leslie Groves, the construction of the actual bomb was overseen by Robert Oppenheimer, who was head of the Los Alamos Laboratory where it was developed. In 1939 a letter written by Leo Szilard and signed by Albert Einstein was delivered to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The letter urged the United States to develop uranium stockpiles and commence research efforts, especially as Nazi Germany might do the same.

The work was carried out with extreme secrecy with many of those working on the project having no idea what they were working towards. Despite the security, Soviet spies managed to penetrate the project and were aware that the US had developed the bomb. Less than a month later, President Harry Truman authorized the use of nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Unwilling to surrender, Japan did not acknowledge the singular bomb. However, the second bomb brought about a swift end to World War II without the need for a catastrophic invasion of Japan.

Note: The "Calutron Girls" are shown monitoring a mass spectrometer, used for separating the isotopes of uranium, during the Manhattan Project in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The women were mostly high school graduates. In the foreground is Gladys Owens. Almost difficult to comprehend, she did not know what she was involved with until seeing this picture on a tour fifty years later.

Mixing Mythology With Petroleum

The flying red horse symbol was first used by Vacuum Oil in South Africa in 1911. In the same year, the Standard Oil Trust was broken up by the Supreme Court with two of its divisions eventually merging, Standard Oil Company of New York and the Vacuum Oil Company in 1931. The former brought with it their Pegasus logo, the latter brought the Mobilgas name. The company confusion began in earnest with the Supreme Court's break up of Standard Oil into thirty-three different companies, including Standard Oil of New Jersey (Jersey Standard), Socony Oil, and Vacuum Oil with some companies retaining the name Standard Oil. In many states, Jersey Standard marketed its products under the brand "Esso," the phonetic pronunciation of the initials "S" and "O" in Standard Oil. In petty defiance, other Standard Oil companies in other states objected. In those states, Jersey Standard was marketed under the brands Enco (Energy Company) and Humble. Jersey Standard became Exxon Corporation in 1972 and in 1999 joined Mobil Oil Corporation. Pegasus, the Greek mythology symbol of speed and power, became the adopted trademark of Mobil, today as ExxonMobil Corporation. The red Pegasus remains among the most recognized corporate symbols in American history.

An Unavoidable Bottleneck

 

A cloverleaf interchange is a two-level interchange common in the United States for over forty years as the Interstate Highway System expanded rapidly. In 1929, the first cloverleaf interchange built in the United States was the Woodbridge Cloverleaf at the intersection of the Lincoln Highway (Route 25) and Amboy—now St. Georges—Avenue Route 4—now U.S. 1/9 and Route 35—in Woodbridge Township, New Jersey. The first cloverleaf west of the Mississippi River opened in 1931, at Watson Road and Lindbergh Boulevard near St. Louis, Missouri, as part of an upgrade of Route 66. The primary drawback of the classic design of the cloverleaf is that vehicles merge onto the highway at the end of a loop immediately before other vehicles leave to go around another loop, creating conflict known as weaving. Weaving limits the number of lanes of turning traffic. Most road authorities have since been implementing new interchange designs with less-curved exit ramps.

Reel Character Series

 

Starring in many significant or low-budget films, Richard Egan (1921-1987) was a strong lead and supporting actor during the 1950s and 1960s. Though many of those early films may have been forgotten, Egan always treated his role as the lead actor he was. He was churning out decent pictures for Universal, RKO and MGM in supporting roles from 1950 to 1954 becoming quite the hunk sans shirt after Demetrius and The Gladiators (1954). Egan won Golden Globes for his supporting performances in the films The Glory Brigade (1953) and The Kid from Left Field (1953). Twentieth Century Fox brought stardom to Egan with a mix of good and bad guys roles in adventure, western and drama films. Beginning in the 1960s, television was the next medium to conquer and he did so through the mid-Eighties.

 
After graduating from St. Ignatius College Preparatory, the San Francisco-born actor enlisted in the Army in 1943 serving as a judo and knife fighting instructor for one year, then discharged with the rank of captain. He eventually earned a master's degree in theater history from Stanford University. He went on to teach public speaking at Northwestern University. Egan's single, nearly thirty-year marriage lasted until his death.

Drought, Heat and Wind Create Dust

 

On this day in 1936, Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin set a state record high temperature of 114°F. Across Lake Michigan in Mio, Michigan, they also set a state record of 112°F. The record temperatures occurred during the "Dust Bowl" drought which came in three waves, 1934, 1936, and 1939-40, bringing some of the hottest summers on record to the US, especially across the Upper Midwest and the Great Lake States. The periodic severe dust storms in the Plains greatly damaged the ecology and agriculture due to poor farming management techniques, plowing every acre available. Without the vegetation and soil moisture, the region acted as a furnace taking on desert-like qualities and provided the most dramatic photography to chronicle the period. Congress occasionally has its relevance. They passed Public Law 74-46 in 1935, recognizing that “the wastage of soil and moisture resources on farm, grazing, and forest lands…is a menace to the national welfare.” This law established the Soil Conservation Service, now USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service.

This is Jim Rockford

 

Hey, Jimbo --- Dennis. Really appreciate the help on the income tax. 

Do you want to help on the audit now?

Jim's answering machine: Pastoria Prime Pick, 1975
Warren Kemmerling, Kathie Browne guest star

Note: Of all the people Dennis could get help on his taxes! 

The First of Sixty at Forty-One

 

On this day in 1980, the first McDonnell Douglas KC-10A Extender made its first flight from Long Beach, California. Based on the DC-10-30CF commercial transport, this aerial tanker can carry 356,000 pounds of fuel. Using a “flying boom” to refuel Air Force aircraft in flight, it also is equipped with a “hose and drogue” system to refuel U.S. Navy and Marine airplanes. Both systems can be used simultaneously. The tanker can also carry cargo pallets or a combination of personnel and cargo. Sixty KC-10s were built for the U.S. Air Force and two similar KDC-10s for the Netherlands. Forty-One years later, that first KC-10A 79-0433, above, is still in service.

The Speed Queen

 

Jacqueline "Jackie" Cochran (1906-1980) was an American pilot and business executive. She pioneered women's aviation as one of the most prominent racing pilots of her generation. She set numerous records and was the only woman to compete in the 1937 Bendix air race, working with Amelia Earhart to open the race to women. That year, she also set a new women's world speed record. By the next year, she had won the Bendix championship and set a new transcontinental speed record as well as altitude records. She was the first woman to fly a bomber across the Atlantic. Cochran was the wartime head of the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) from 1943–44. By 1948, Cochran joined the U.S. Air Force Reserve as a lieutenant colonel. Encouraged by lifelong friend, Chuck Yeager, she was the first woman to break the sound barrier in 1953. She was promoted to colonel in 1969 and retired in 1970. Flying jet aircraft, she continued setting numerous records, including becoming the first woman pilot to achieve supersonic speed. Known to many as the "Speed Queen", no other pilot held more speed, distance, or altitude records in aviation history than Cochran. Detailed history at Cochran. 

Airport Shuttle Service

 

On this day in 1953, America’s first helicopter airline, New York Airways, began scheduled passenger service between the three area airports—La Guardia, Idlewild and Newark. There were sixteen flights per day at ninety-minute intervals. The first aircraft used was the Sikorsky S-55 (above), a commercial variant of the military H-19 Chickasaw. It carried 8 passengers and a cargo of U.S. Mail. The mail contract provided 75% of NYA’s revenue. As its popularity increased, New York Airways shifted to larger helicopters when they became available. In 1977, the landing gear failed while on the heliport of the Pan Am building in Manhattan. It rolled over and spinning rotor blades killed four waiting passengers. Broken blades then fell to the street killing a pedestrian and injuring several others. Its reputation severely damaged and fuel prices escalating, New York Airways filed for bankruptcy in 1979.

NASA's Crawlers Are Aptly Named

 

The crawler-transporters (Missile Crawler Transporter Facilities) are a pair of tracked vehicles used to transport spacecraft from NASA's Vehicle Assembly Building along the Crawlerway to Launch Complex 39. Built in 1965, they were originally used to transport the Saturn IB and Saturn V rockets during the Apollo, Skylab, and Apollo–Soyuz programs. Built by Marion Power Shovel Company using components designed and built by Rockwell International, their technology has been upgraded over the years. They each weigh over 6 million pounds and would cover the infield in a baseball stadium. Powered by locomotive and large electrical power generator engines, they use laser guidance and a leveling system to keep the Mobile Launcher Platform level. The crawlers have traveled more than 3,400 miles at a speed of 1 mph loaded or 2 mph empty. Still, more entertaining than watching paint dry. The two crawler-transporters were added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2000. Check out an interesting fact sheet from NASA.

Everybody Wanted Moore

 

Garry Moore (Thomas Garrison Morfit 1915-1993) was an American entertainer, comedic personality, humorist and this versatility made him a force to be reckoned with in the 1950s and 1960s. Early in his career, he was recognized distinctly for his bow tie and his crew cut fashion and his on-air transparency. He hosted the hugely popular weekly prime-time panel show, I've Got a Secret, from 1952 until 1964. It was double duty for Moore with his variety series, the hour-long, The Garry Moore Show (1958-64) airing simultaneously. The show was a revival of his earlier 1950 30-minute talk-variety show. He was noted for promoting the careers of other entertainers, most notably, Carol Burnett. Moore later replaced the original host of To Tell the Truth, Bud Collyer, when the show was syndicated from 1969 to 1977. But health trouble resulted in numerous guest hosts during his tenure. After a forty-two-year career, Moore retired in 1977 after announcing on the show about his health. 

Before television, Moore recorded six of his radio monologues for Decca in 1944, including his incredible, triple-time speed reading of Little Ride Riding Hood, his classic “Hugh, the Blue Gnu,” and a calamity-filled version of “In the Good Old Summertime”. They were released as an album of three 78 rpm records titled “Culture Corner”. 

The Illustrator As Salesman

 

Bernd Reuters (1901-58) was a German illustrator who created stylish Volkswagen promos that stressed streamlined functionality over flourish in the mid-50s. With the rise of Volkswagen in the late 1940s, Reuters began a five or six-year run of producing striking, distinctive brochure images for the firm, some of which continued to be used following his death from a heart attack. His exaggerated upscale impressions were dreamy and perhaps made one drive to a showroom as soon as possible. More illustrations at: Bernd Reuters

Mark Twain Expressway

 

A section of Interstate 70 in St. Louis, Missouri is designated the Mark Twain Expressway. Interstate 70 traverses nearly the width of the US, serving major metropolitan areas such as Denver, Kansas City, St. Louis, Indianapolis, Columbus and Baltimore. The west end connects with Interstate 15 at Cove Fort, Utah with no plans to extend I-70 west beyond that point. Bill Fleming's illustration for the Portland Cement Association captures the highway's original, simple course near Lambert-St. Louis Airport in 1960.