Monday, August 10, 2015

10 August 2015

Birthdays
Ah-sung Ko b. 1992 (Snowpiercer, The Host)
Lucas Till b. 1990 (X-Men: Days of Future Past, All Superheroes Must Die, X-Men: First Class, Battle Los Angeles, Dance of the Dead)
Brendon Thwaites b. 1989 (Maleficent, The Signal, Oculus)
Nicole Taylor b. 1983 (Insatiable)
Devon Aoki b. 1982 (Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Undead, Mutant Chronicles, Sin City)
Roxanne McKee b. 1980 (Dominion, The Legend of Hercules, Game of Thrones)
Pua Magasive b. 1980 (30 Days of Night, Power Rangers)
JoAnna Garcia Swisher b. 1979 (Once Upon a Time, The Astronaut Wives Club, From the Earth to the Moon, SeaQuest 2032, Superboy)
Leo Fitzpatrick b. 1978 (Carnivale)
Joanna Bacalso b. 1976 (Lost Girl, Dude, Where’s My Car?, Forever Knight)
Rick Otto b. 1973 (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Teen Wolf [TV], The Walking Dead, Dollhouse, Phantoms)
Thor Van Lingen b. 1973 (Return of the Living Dead II)
Justin Theroux b. 1971 (The Leftovers)
Claudia Christian b. 1965 (Runestone, Grimm, Starhyke, The Haunting of Hell House, Babylon 5, Highlander [TV], Lancelot: Guardian of Time, Space Rangers, Quantum Leap, The Hidden)
Eric Thal b. 1965 (The Puppet Masters)
Beverly Randolph b. 1964 (The Return of the Living Dead)
Suzanne Collins b. 1962 (author, The Hunger Games)
Antonio Banderas b. 1960 (Automata, Spy Kids 1, 2 and 3, Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles)
Rosanna Arquette b. 1959 (Eastwick)
Don Swayze b. 1958 (Blood Type, True Blood, Charmed, Carnivale, Tremors [TV], The X Files, Lois & Clark, Beach Babes from Beyond)
Rick Overton b. 1954 (True Blood, COPS: Skyrim, Cloverfield, The Astronaut Farmer, Lost, Eight Legged Freaks, Charmed, The Secret Adventures of Jules Verne, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids: The TV Show, Lois & Clark, Groundhog Day, The Rocketeer, Earth Girls Are Easy, Traxx, Willow, Amazing Stories)
Diane Venora b. 1952 (Little Hercules in 3-D, Threshold, Megiddo: The Omega Code 2, Wolfen)
Kate O’Mara b. 1939 died 30 March 2014 (Doctor Who, The Horror of Frankenstein, The Vampire Lovers)
Murray Melvin b. 1932 (Torchwood, Starhunter, Alice in Wonderland [1999 TV])
Lynn Cohen b. 1933 (The Hunger Games: Catching Fire)
Martha Hyer b. 1924 died May 31 2014 (Bewitched, First Men in the Moon, Mistress of the World, Abbott and Costello Go to Mars)
Rhonda Fleming b. 1923 (A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court)
Jeff Corey b. 1914 died 16 August 2002 (Charmed, Brimstone, Perversions of Science, Babylon 5, Beauty and the Beast, War of the Worlds [1988], Starman, Faerie Tales Theatre, Manimal, The Powers of Matthew Star, The Sword and the Sorcerer, Battle Beyond the Stars, The Bionic Woman, The Six Million Dollar Man, Beneath the Planet of the Apes, Star Trek, The Outer Limits, Superman and the Mole-Men, The Next Voice You Hear…, Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man)
Noah Beery Jr b. 1913 died 1 November 1994 (Mysterious Two, Beyond Witch Mountain, The Six million Dollar Man, The Immortal, 7 Faces of Dr. Lao, Rocketship X-M)
Richard Reeves b. 1912 died 17 March 1967 (Mr. Terrific, I Dream of Jeannie, Billy the Kid Versus Dracula, The Addams Family, Batman, The Munsters, My Favorite Martian, Adventures of Superman, Target Earth)
Curt Siodmak b. 1902 died 2 September 2000 (author, Donovan’s Brain)
Jack Haley b. 1898 died 6 June 1979 (The Wizard of Oz)

Notes from the birthday list.
1. The Picture Slot. Regular readers know the drill. I like iconic and I don't want to repeat myself except under remarkable circumstances. Early Picture Slotters were Claudia Christian from Babylon 5 and the great Oh That Guy Jeff Corey. In a just world, Ah-Sung Ko would be iconic from The Host and Snowpiercer, but that's just my imagination, running away with me.

Jack Haley as The Tin Man is iconic. It may be really old school, but that is completely beside the point.

2. Spot the Canadians! Roxanne McKee is Canadian, but being on Game of Thrones could easily send even the most experienced Canadian spotter off the scent. Joanna Bacalso is a little easier to spot.

3. Nepotism FTW and MST3K. Noah Beery Jr is the son of Noah Beery Sr and the nephew of Wallace Beery. He was also in Rocketship X-M, which means we have an MST3k connection Rosanna Arquette is part of the multi-generational Arquette clan.

4. And special birthday wishes to... Rhonda Fleming turns 92 today. She is not The Gal at the Door because some folks younger than her are already gone, but I wanted to send my best wishes because Miss Fleming is tied with Maureen O'Hara as the prettiest redhead ever. Cristina Hendricks is the most Va-Va-voomy redhead ever, tied with Jessica Rabbit.

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


Predictor: Robert A. Heinlein in The Door Into Summer, serialized in 1956, published as a novel in 1957

Prediction: Denver had become the national capital after the Six Weeks War.

Reality: Yet another causal prediction of a nuclear war from 1950s science fiction. Folks who remember earlier Heinlein predictions might recall he was asked by some folks to actually predict stuff, apart from the predictions he wrote in his fiction. He went from "We're all doomed!" to "Things will be okay."in the space of a couple years in the 1940s. Regular reader Leo Lincourt, much more a Heinlein scholar than I am, suggests his change of mood might have to do with divorcing a wife who made him miserable and then marrying another woman who made him happy.
 
Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!

We get the last prediction from our 1930s commie John Langdon-Davies. He hasn't been quite as much fun to mock as FroMo-2030, Paul Ehrlich or Ray Kurzweil, but he has been wrong just about as often.
  
Join us then... IN THE FUTURE!

3 comments:

  1. Rosanna Arquette is iconic. And Charlie Weaver's granddaughter.

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  2. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  3. FroMo was pretty special, agreed. And much more fun than the letdown that is Real HG wells...

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