h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The name Franklin should be fairly common was social rank. A franklin was medieval term for a free tenant of the Crown, holding his lands without the obligation.

I recently watched Groucho's last film, Skidoo.

He played a character called "God".

It was directed by Otto Preminger, who took acid himself for "research" for the film.

The idea of Otto Preminger on acid is frankly mind-blowing.

Groucho gave a one-man show in 1972

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Evening_with_Groucho

I used to have a recording of it, and have fond memories of it.

"Skidoo" had quite a cast. besides Groucho, it had Jackie Gleason, Carol Channing, Frankie Avalon, Mickey Rooney, Burgess Meredith, George Raft, etc. Of those, only Carol and Frankie are still alive.

I misread something earlier and misspoke. It was Groucho, not Otto who dropped acid in preparation for the film.

I was trying to find a quote of what Groucho said about appearing in the film. I'm still looking.

Found it!

Groucho said about _Skidoo!_ and his role as a mob boss called 'God', "Both the picture and my role were God-awful."

(Bad Taste Alert)
There was a brother who really bombed who was that

John Denver died just after Princess Diana. I can remember being the only one I knew who seemed to know and mourn.

Burgess Meredith played The Penguin in the original slapstick Batman I have an entry about penguins in Peer Review

GB

My abiding memory of Burgess Meredith was in The Time Tunnel, which I loved as a child. He was the white-coated leader of operations back at the base.

I remember one episode where they met an alien from Canopus. When they pointed out that his spaceship used sunlight to generate power, he corrected them to say that it used Canopean light. What a pedant.

There was also an episode where Doug and Tony calmed a riot by predicting the instant that the tail on Halley's Comet would disappear, a process which in the real world takes weeks.

Suppose if you have a time machine thats not a problem

If I had a time machine I would pop back and pick up two men whose births and deaths coincided with consecutive returns of Halley's Comet... welcome aboard Mark Twain and Giovanni Schiaparelli now let's just pop to 1997 and I'll show you a comet
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap131124.html

I asked a hard-of-hearing inventor to make me a time machine, and he gave me a tie machine. Now I don't know what to do with all the neckwear.

You need to open a tie shop.
Perhaps you're very well known in the 22nd century.

I would hate to think that the silk noose that is thankfully headed for oblivion now is going to make a comeback in future centuries.

Here's what a newsrell in the 1930s thought people would be wearing in the year 2000:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9eAiy0IGBI

Note that the got the mobile right - but the design was a bit off.

There's a wonderful film made backstage at a Charlie Chaplin film set back in the 20s. In the middle of it all, a woman walks past who appears to be talking on a mobile phone.

Anachronistic!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiIrpEMbQ2M

Except it's a hearing aid like my grandmother had.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiIrpEMbQ2M

That cursed https bug. It's because h2g2 tries to reformat urls that occur in posts. It doesn't recognise https as a valid way of starting a URL (although it is) so it treats it as plain text.

Pliny keeps it as a link, though.

One of my favorite silver chains broke.

Have you ever received a chain letter in the mail?

They are supposed to bring bad luck if you do not forward them to your friends

F S