most sensational, inspirational, celebrational

Originally airing on the British ITV network before being picked up in syndication for American audiences, Jim Henson’s Muppet Show was first broadcast on this day in 1976—the characters and premise previewed with two pilots the previous two years, the first subtitled the Valentine Show with guest star Mia Farrow and Sex and Violence with an all Muppet cast.  

The first episode featured Joel Grey, the Master of Ceremonies from Cabaret, with the guest act being “Wilkommen” and father of Jennifer of Dirty Dancing fame. Musical numbers, guest interviews are interspersed with Fozzie Bear’s comedy routines, Gonzo’s random act of destruction and Muppet News flashes. The Swedish Chef’s cooking segments appeared in episode two.  Coincidentally on the same date five years earlier, the BBC was offered Sesame Street but rejected to add it to their programming schedule, framing the show as “indoctrination and a dangerous extension of the use of television” and having “authoritarian aims.” Independent broadcasters eventually brought the educational programme to the UK.

armorial bearings

Incorporating heraldic data from Wikimedia Commons (previously) with cartographical coordination from Open Street Maps, we quite liked this developing website from Adnan Smlatić of European Coats of Arms, emblazons and charges that can be filtered and overlain by administrative divisions (see also) and zooming down to the most granular levels of the landed gentry. It’s a pretty cool endeavour and let’s help the creator met their stretch-goal.

intolerance

Though not to be understood as a receptive apology or contrite response for his stereotyping and racist portrayals of his previous spectacle that glamourised and revived America’s Klu Klux Klan—quite the opposite as the direct was fervent that he had nothing to be sorry for and that his critics were the intolerant ones, the silent film epic from D. W. Griffith subtitled variously either A Sun-Play of the Ages or Love’s Struggle Throughout the Ages certainly undertook a grander focus, premiering on this day in 1916. 

Though punctuated with several intermissions and interludes, the three-and-a-half-hour film consists of four stories separated by millennia and mores that trace how intolerance has informed human history and suffering through the ages. The first chapter, the “Babylonian story” depicts the fall of the civilisation due to a sectarian fight between followers of rival gods Ishtar and Marduk. The next recounts the Bible passages of the Wedding at Cana and The Woman Taken in Adultery and how religious and unneighbourly bigotry and small-mindedness led to the crucifixion of Jesus. The “Renaissance story” recounts the persecution of the Protestant Huguenots by royalist Catholics that led to the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre. The final contemporary story set in America shows how petty crime, moral puritanism and capitalism conspire to keep the downtrodden marginalised. Transitions are marked by an image of the Eternal Mother rocking a cradle to represent the passing of generations.

i never had one myself, enough to remember. i was torn from the thigh of zeus.

Airing for the first time on this day in 1993, Sam Newfield’s 1944 juvenile delinquency exploitation flick was rediscovered through its MST3K lampoon (from the same director as Lost Continent and RADAR Secret Service) and elevated to the status of a cult classic, when defendant and mild-mannered teen Jimmy Wilson indicts his absent and alcoholic parents and lays the blame for his charge of manslaughter squarely on his substandard upbringing. Wilson is unwittingly recruited into a ring fencing stolen jewellery whose activity eventually results in the killing of a security guard and fearing reprisal and the consequences of associating with these criminal elements becomes a fugitive from justice for an indeterminate length of time. Jimmy is convinced to return to stand in court for his involvement.

goethe-schiller-denkmal

Setting off what was called the “cult of monuments” with dozens of replicas subsequently installed throughout Europe and the North America, the original double-bronze statue (Doppelstandbild) of friends and revered literary figures Johann Wolfgang Goethe and Friedrich Schiller by sculptor Ernst Rietschel (previously) and commissioned by popular demand under the patronage of Karl Alexander August Johann, Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, was unveiled on this day in 1857 in the forecourt of the royal theatre where Goethe had served as director for nearly twenty-five years, the house hosting countless performances of Schiller’s plays over the years. Despite specious or wholly lacking affinities to these places, like monuments had been dedicated New York, San Francisco, Columbus Ohio, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, Chicago and St. Louis prior to the outbreak of World War I and even during fighting, more ensemble pieces were erected in Omaha, Detroit, St. Paul, Syracuse and Rochester.

modes, jerry, modes!

Via Waxy, we find this rather arrestingly brilliant version of the Miles Davis’ classic “A Kind of Blue” by Zach Lapidus in the style of the theme from Seinfeld, which tracks as the opening was improvised and freshly recorded for each episode.

space: 1999

Though only running for two seasons, the titular BBC programme (renewed the second year by ITC Entertainment) that premiered on this day in 1975 was quite ahead of its time and established among many other tropes the “cold open” scene that preceded the credit sequence, itself boldly a spin-off of a narrative in the Supermarionation production Thunderbirds by the same creative duo Sylvia and Gerry Anderson in non-puppet form. A radioactive waste dump on the far side of the Moon, detected by the research staff at Lunar Base Alpha, experiences a magnetic anomaly, which causes the material to reach critical mass and triggers a thermonuclear explosion 13 September 1999 and propels the Earth’s satellite into deep space. This spaceship Moon wanders into a black hole and several “space warps” to continue its exploration of the Cosmos.

tales of the old web

Via Web Curios, which has been an absolute wealth of Wunderkammer ideas lately, we discover a repository of the old, weird internet of mostly personal webpages that despite link-rot, abandonment and isolation have endured in a discoverable state since the mid- to late 1990s curated by 404Pagefound, an established source that’s been gathering moribund websites going on seven years but new to us. Browse through the exhibitions—all clickable and not archived—and do some time-travelling in Web 1.0.