11 June 2014

 Birthdays
Ivana Baquero b. 1994 (Pan’s Labyrinth)
Eugene Simon b. 1992 (House of Anubis, Game of Thrones)
Claire Holt b. 1988 (The Vampire Diaries, H2O: Just Add Water)
Shia LeBeouf b. 1986 (Transformers, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, I, Robot, The X-Files)
Joshua Jackson b. 1978 (Fringe, Magic in the Water)
Jane Goldman b. 1979 (screenwriter, X-Men: Days of Future Past, X-Men: First Class, Kick-Ass, Stardust)
Peter Dinklage b. 1969 (Game of Thrones, X-Men: Days of Future Past, Knights of Badassdom, Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian)
Pamela Gidley b. 1965 (The Little Vampire, Cherry 2000)
Hugh O’Gorman b. 1965 (The 10th Kingdom)
Hugh Laurie b. 1959 (Tomorrowland [2015], Stuart Little, The Borrowers, The Crystal Cube)
Sherman Howard b. 1949 (The Mummy: Secrets of the Medjai, Invader ZIM, Star Trek: Voyager, Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, Retroactive, The Burning Zone, Deep Space Nine, Sliders, SeaQuest 2032, The Stand, Space Rangers, Superboy, Good & Evil, Quantum Leap, Star Trek: The Next Generation, ALF, Dark Angel, Freddy’s Nightmares, Max Headroom, Day of the Dead)
Adrienne Barbeau b. 1945 (Carnivale, The Chronicle, Deep Space Nine, Sliders, Weird Science, Burial of the Rats, Babylon 5, Twilight Zone, Creepshow, Swamp Thing, Escape from New York, The Fog)
Jordan Rhodes b. 1939 (Battlestar Galactica, The Terminal Man, Wonder Woman, The Night Stalker)
Chad Everett b. 1937 died 24 July 2012 (Supernatural, When Time Expires)
Gene Wilder b. 1933 (Alice in Wonderland [1999 TV], Haunted Honeymoon, Young Frankenstein, Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory)
Ed Bishop b. 1932 died 8 June 2005 (Highlander [TV], Whoops Apocalypse, Saturn 3, 1990, Twilight’s Last Gleaming, The Day After Tomorrow [1976], UFO, Journey to the Far Side of the Sun, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Battle Beneath the Earth, The Mouse on the Moon)
John Bromfield b. 1922 died 18 September 2005 (Curucu, Beast of the Amazon, Revenge of the Creature)
Robert Hutton b. 1920 (Trog, They Came from Beyond Space, The Vulture, The Slime People, Invisible Invaders, The Colossus of New York)
Richard Todd b. 1919 died 3 December 2009 (Doctor Who)
Buddy Baer b. 1915 died 18 July 1986 (Giant from the Unknown, Adventures of Superman, Jack and the Beanstalk [1952])
Dudley Manlove b. 1914 died 17 April 1996 (The Creation of the Humanoids, Plan 9 from Outer Space)
Gerald Mohr b. 1914 died 9 November 1968 (Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Lost in Space, Men Into Space, The Angry Red Planet, Invasion U.S.A.)

First, I'd like to apologize to Eugene Simon. He plays Lancel Lannister on Game of Thrones and I can promise he will never be in the Picture Slot, through no fault of his own. I loves me some Peter Dinklage and on any 11th of June when Game of Thrones is in season, it's gonna be a picture of Tyrion.

Like with young Mr. Simon, I can promise that Shia LeBeouf will never be in the Picture Slot, but for this I do not apologize. Mr. LeBeouf is a young man of low morals and awful taste. Not that I feel strongly about this.

If I ever decide to go for a fabulous babe on this date, Pamela Gidley played the sex robot in Cherry 2000 and of course there's Adrienne Barbeau. I can't go wrong with either of them

Yesterday, there was an Oh That Guy actor who I had to admit did not register with me. This is not the case with today's Oh That Guy. Sherman Howard played Lex Luthor on the Superboy TV show, and even though that was well over twenty years ago, that's the first link my brain makes when I see this guy. He also played multiple roles on various incarnations of Star Trek, so genre fans are going to have seen this guy many times.

One more comment on today's list. Because of the increased interest in sci-fi in movies and TV today, it's very common for a lot of actors from the Millennial generation on our list, which is now counted as born after 1982. It's much rarer for us to get a passel of actors born before 1925, but today we hit a mother lode vein of guys from 1950s monster movies. The most interesting biographical tidbits I know about these guys are:

1) Buddy Baer was the brother of Max Baer and both of heavyweight boxers who lost to Joe Louis.
2) Robert Hutton was a cousin to Barbara Hutton, the heiress to the Woolworth fortune. He wasn't a close enough relative to get any of the cash, so he ends up in The Vulture and The Slime People.
3) Dudley Manlove, best known on screen as the main alien Eros in Plan Nine from Outer Space, was awful in front of the camera but had a lovely voice and found steady work as a radio announcer and actor. (Remember when people acted on the radio? If so, you are horribly old.)


Many happy returns to the living on the list and to the dead, thanks for all the memories.

Predictor: T. Baron Russell in the 1905 book One Hundred Years Hence, The Expectations of an Optimist

Prediction: If we need any motive power other than electricity, or if we need motive power of some other kind to produce electricity, no doubt the explosive recombination of oxygen and hydrogen, controlled by devices developed from existing gas-engines and petrol-engines, will be a starting-point : because coal will, probably before the complete exhaustion of the supply of it, have been found altogether too dirty and unhealthy a thing to use, at all events by way of combustion.

Reality: In 1905, It wasn't exactly clairvoyance to predict how useful gasoline powered engines would become in the future, but this part is certainly true. Sadly, he's wrong so far about the death of coal. We haven't stopped using it, and it is the filthiest of all the fossil fuels. Eventually it will become unprofitable to get the last of it out of the ground, but unless environmental regulations become much stricter, that day looks to be very far in the future.

Farewell to T. Baron Russell: I hate to throw away a wealth of predictions like Russell's book, but this prediction ties him with Heinlein for most predictions used from a single person, and I don't want to put Russell in first place all by himself since he isn't truly sci-fi. (Note that both the OMNI Future Almanac and the 1893 Columbian Exhibition have more predictions that either Russell or Heinlein, but that isn't a single person's work.) I'd like the thank the ghost of Mr. Russell for his very useful book and next Wednesday there will be a new regular predictor.

Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!

An exact date prediction takes precedence over the weekly schedule.

Join us then... IN THE FUTURE!