October 14, 1977: Anita Bryant Gets "Canceled" With a Pie

October 14, 1977: Gay activist Thom Higgins responds to singer Anita Bryant's anti-gay legislative campaign by hitting her in the face with a pie during a press conference in Des Moines, Iowa. At first, she maintained her composure, and joked, using a slur on gay men, "At least it's a fruit pie." She soon broke down in tears.

Gay people had run a boycott of her most famous endorsement, of Florida orange juice. The growers soon realized they were losing money, and dropped her as a spokesperson. Jokes about her had become part of Johnny Carson's monologue on The Tonight Show and questions on Match Game.

Bryant as a young singer

Although she had peaked as a decidedly non-rock singer in the early 1960s, she was still fairly popular until her "Save Our Children" campaign. But after this, her career was ruined. Her marriage soon broke up. Eventually, the only town where she could get hired was Branson, Missouri, the place known as "the Redneck Vegas." She is still alive, age 82, an early victim of "cancel culture." Higgins died in 1994, from complications of AIDS.

The most recent picture of her I could find, dated 2011

(UPDATE: Anita Bryant died on December 16, 2024, at the age of 84. It had been 3 years since her granddaughter, Sarah Green, had come out as gay and announced she was marrying a woman.)

Also on this day, Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby dies at age 74, of a heart attack following a round of golf at a country club in Alcobendas, Spain, a suburb of Madrid. How good a golfer the legendary singer and actor known as "Der Bingle" was is open to debate, but he did sponsor the Bing Crosby Open tournament.

Golf isn't a real sport? I agree. Okay, then: From 1946 until his death, he was a part-owner of the Pittsburgh Pirates, while his frequent movie costar and golfing buddy Bob Hope was a part-owner of the next-closest big-league team, the Cleveland Indians. Fortunately for them, the 2 teams are in different leagues, so the nasty Pittsburgh-Cleveland football rivalry did not spill over into baseball. (In fact, 2013 marked the 1st time both the Pirates and the Indians ever made the postseason in the same year.)

*

October 14, 1977 was a Friday. The New York Yankees won Game 3 of the World Series, defeating the Los Angeles Dodgers, 5-3 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. Mike Torrez went the distance for the win, and Mickey Rivers collected 3 hits, 2 of them doubles.

Football was in midweek. The NBA season began 4 days later. There were 2 NHL games. The New York Islanders and the Los Angeles Kings played to a tie, 0-0 at the Nassau Coliseum. And the Vancouver Canucks beat the Detroit Red Wings, 3-2 at the Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver.

And there were 2 games in the World Hockey Association. The Quebec Nordiques beat the Cincinnati Stingers, 5-1 at the Colisée de Québec. And the New England Whalers and the Indianapolis Racers played to a 2-2 tie at the Market Square Arena in Indianapolis.

October 5, 1932: "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?"

October 5, 1932: The musical revue Americana premieres at the Shubert Theatre in New York. It has songs by, among others, Edgar Yipsel "Yip" Harburg and Jay Gorney. Their contribution is "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" That 10 cents would now be worth $2.13 -- enough to get a cup of coffee at a diner, if not at Starbucks or Dunkin'.

The song was written in 1930, but this revue made it the song of the Great Depression, especially after Bing Crosby recorded it within days. Ironically, Crosby was a Republican, but his recording, along with everything else to do with the Depression, sent the Republican incumbent President, Herbert Hoover, down to a phenomenally large defeat, electing the Democratic nominee, Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt of New York.

In the lyrics, the singer tells of having worked on a railroad and on building a skyscraper, and having served his country in World War I, just 14 years earlier. Now, he can't get work anywhere, and the country wants nothing to do with him:

They used to tell me

I was building a dream.

And so I followed the mob.

When there was earth to plow

or guns to bear

I was always there, right on the job.

They used to tell me

I was building a dream

with peace and glory ahead.

Why should I be standing in line

just waiting for bread? 

Once, I built a railroad.

I made it run.

Made it race against time.

Once, I built a railroad.

Now, it's done.

Brother, can you spare a dime?

Once, I built a tower

up to the Sun

out of brick and rivets and lime.

Once, I built a tower.

Now, it's done.

Brother, can you spare a dime?

Once, in khaki suits

gee, we looked swell

full of that Yankee Doodle-y dum.

Half a million boots

went slogging through Hell

and I was the kid with the drum.

Say, don't you remember?

They called me "Al."

It was "Al," all the time.

Why don't you remember?

I'm your pal?

Buddy, can you spare a dime?

The front and back of a Mercury dime,

which were minted from 1916 to 1945,

before the adoption of the Roosevelt dime.

If you can find one in good condition today,

a coin dealer might pay $3.00.

Harburg also wrote the lyrics for "April in Paris," "It's Only a Paper Moon," and all of the songs for The Wizard of Oz, including "Over the Rainbow." In 1974, he was asked to update the tune for that year of Watergate and "stagflationary" recession, and he did:

Once we had a Roosevelt.

Praise the Lord!

Life had meaning and hope.

Now, we're stuck with Nixon

Agnew and Ford.

Brother, can you spare a rope?

Whether he wanted to hang himself or them, he didn't say. He lived until 1981, age 86. Gorney lived until 1990, age 93.

In 2020, I wrote this, because Donald Trump made so many of us sick to our stomachs:

Once we had a Roosevelt.

Once a Kennedy.

Uplifted me and my chums.

What have we got now?

Trump's GOP.

Brother, can you spare a Tums?

The people who lived through the Great Depression are now either dead, or very old. They were the "forgotten man" and woman of their age. As my mother once pointed out to me, there were no support groups for survivors of the Depression, like her parents. There is no memorial specifically for them on the National Mall in Washington, although the FDR Memorial includes a tribute to them. They had their songs, and their movies, rather than tangible tributes.

We dare not forget them now. We have had hard recessions in 1973-76, 1980-83, 1990-93, 2001-03, 2007-10 and 2020-21. But not another Depression, because of the safeguards we put into place in the 1930s. If we fail to support these safeguards, then everything those people suffered through, and everything those who worked to help them did to do so, will have been in vain.

*

October 5, 1932 was a Wednesday. The baseball season ended 3 days earlier, when the New York Yankees completed a 4-game sweep over the Chicago Cubs. Football was in midweek. The NBA hadn't been founded yet. And the NHL season didn't start until November 10. So there were no scores on this historic day.

July 30, 1942: Bing Crosby Releases "White Christmas"

July 30, 1942: Bing Crosby releases "White Christmas," written by Irving Berlin. It becomes the most famous secular Christmas song of all time, and sells more copies than any single record in history.

Like a song written a few years later, "The Christmas Song" (a.k.a. "Chestnuts Roasting On an Open Fire"), it was written in Los Angeles during a Summer. Berlin was Jewish, but he told his secretary, "I want you to take down a song I wrote over the weekend. Not only is it the best song I ever wrote, it's the best song anybody ever wrote."

On December 25, 1941, just 18 days after the attack on Pearl Harbor brought America into World War II, Crosby sang the song on his NBC radio show The Kraft Music Hall. He recorded it for Decca Records in Los Angeles, with the John Scott Trotter Orchestra and the Ken Darby Singers, on May 29, 1942. It was released on July 30, and included in his next film, Holiday Inn, which premiered on September 4. (The hotel chain of the same name was started 10 years later.)

Israel Baline had grown up in New York in the 1890s, and made his professional name (Irving Berlin) in New York, and had remembered snow falling during the Christmas season, and that everyone seemed to be happier at that time. So he wrote:

I'm dreaming of a white Christmas

just like the ones I used to know

where the treetops glisten

and children listen

to hear sleigh bells in the snow.

On a personal note: I grew up in New Jersey, a short ride from Midtown Manhattan. From the 1970s onward, the weather tendency has been to not have the Winter's 1st big snowfall until after the New Year. We've had 2 pre-Halloween blizzards, and one blizzard actually on Thanksgiving Day. But as far back as I can remember, we've only had snow on the ground on December 24 and 25 maybe 6 or 7 times. Occasionally, we'd get a snow flurry on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, which was nice, but rarely does it stick. We're just a little too far south to get that "postcard-perfect" "White Christmas" so often associated with New England, further north. More often, it rains, and we get a wet Christmas.

The timing was just right for the song: World War II was underway, and millions of servicemen were away from home, many of them for the 1st time -- but not yet sent overseas, so they could still buy American records, listen to American radio, and visit American movie theaters, thus hearing the song through all 3 media.

By Halloween, October 31, 1942, "White Christmas" was already the Number 1 song in in America. It remained Number 1 all through the holidays: Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's, all the way until January 16, 1943, when it was replaced on top of the charts by "There Are Such Things" by the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra.

As Ronald Lankford wrote in a book about Christmas songs: "During the 1940s, 'White Christmas' would set the stage for a number of classic American holiday songs steeped in a misty longing for yesteryear... The popular culture industry had not viewed the themes of home and hearth, centered on the Christmas holiday, as a unique market."

Dave Marsh and Steve Propes wrote, "'White Christmas' changed Christmas music forever, both by revealing the huge potential market for Christmas songs and by establishing the themes of home and nostalgia that would run through Christmas music evermore."

"White Christmas" won Berlin the Academy Award for Best Original Song. Bing's version hit the Top 10 again during the Christmas seasons of 1945 and 1946. His original 1942 recording was damaged through overuse, so he recorded it again on March 19, 1947, with all of the same people, to make it sound as similar as possible.

In 1954, Crosby and Danny Kaye starred in a film titled White Christmas, and sang the song in it. It tells the story of a pair of World War II veterans-turned-entertainers, and their girlfriends (played by singer Rosemary Clooney and dancer Vera-Ellen, respectively), trying to reunite their old Army unit to save the Vermont hotel run by their former Sergeant.

In 1955, the Clyde McPhatter version of The Drifters had the first rock-and-roll version of the song, bringing the dichotomy of black men singing "White Christmas." In 1963, Darlene Love's version opened A Christmas Gift for You from Philles Records. It includes a brief midsong monologue, reflecting the fact that, like the Bing original, her version was recorded in Los Angeles:

The sun is shining.
The grass is green.
The orange and palm trees sway.
There's never been such a day in old L.A.
But it's December the 24th
and I'm longing to be up north
so I can have my very own white Christmas.

So, San Francisco? Well, maybe Lake Tahoe or the adjacent Olympic Valley (formerly known as Squaw Valley), where the 1960 Winter Olympics were held.

*

July 30, 1942 was a Thursday. These baseball games were played:

* The Brooklyn Dodgers beat the Chicago Cubs, 9-2 at Ebbets Field. Pete Reiser went 3-for-5.

* The Cleveland Indians beat the Boston Red Sox, 4-3 at League Park in Cleveland. Ted Williams, on his way to the Triple Crown, hit a home run. After the season, he would enlist in the U.S. Marine Corps.

* A doubleheader was split at Briggs Stadium in Detroit. (The ballpark was renamed Tiger Stadium in 1961.) The Detroit Tigers won the 1st game, 11-5. The Philadelphia Athletics won the 2nd game, 7-6.

* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the Cincinnati Reds, 4-2 at Shibe Park in Philadelphia. (The ballpark was renamed Connie Mack Stadium in 1953.)

* And the Washington Senators beat the St. Louis Browns, 11-6 at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. (The ballpark was renamed Busch Stadium in 1953.)

March 14, 1940: Bob Hope & Bing Crosby Start Their "Road Pictures"

March 14, 1940: Road to Singapore premieres. It is the 1st in a series of "Road to... " films, or "Road Pictures" starring Bob Hope and Bing Crosby, with secondary star Dorothy Lamour.

(Note: They all begin "Road to... " Never "The Road to... ")

Paramount Pictures first offered the project to Fred MacMurray to Jack Oakie. Both turned it down. So it was offered to the husband & wife comedy team of George Burns & Gracie Allen, but before a 2nd male lead could be chosen to go with Burns, they turned it down. According to Burns, Allen "thought the whole thing was silly."

She was right, but then, that was kind of the point. The plot didn't matter. They never really did. They were precursors to spoof films like Airplane! and the collected works of Mel Brooks with sight gags based on puns, inside jokes, and references to current public figures and pop-culture phenomena that would soon seem terribly dated.

Each film in the series was a parody of a typical genre of films:

* Road to Singapore, March 14, 1940: International-intrigue films.

* Road to Zanzibar, April 11, 1941: Jungle films.

* Road to Morocco, November 10, 1942: "Arabian Nights" films.

* Road to Utopia, made in 1943, but not released until February 27, 1946: Gold Rush films.

* Road to Rio, December 25, 1947: "Latin lover" films. This was the most successful of the series.

* Road to Bali, November 19, 1952: South Seas romance. This was the only film in the series made in color.

* Road to Hong Kong, May 22, 1962: Cold War thrillers. This was a few months before the release of the 1st James Bond film, Dr. No.

In each film, Bob and Der Bingle would play con men, partners that were frequently squabbling. A common trick, debuting in the 1st film, was to get out of a tough situation by distracting their captor by playing Patty Cake and using the end to punch him out. Bob frequently broke the fourth wall, the most notorious example being when he said, "He's gonna sing, folks. Now's the time to go out and get the popcorn."

Bob would also break the fourth wall over-act, often with an upbraiding from Bing. Bob would blame his overacting on his attempt to win an Academy Award. Despite some honorary awards, and hosting their TV broadcast more than any other person, he never won an "Oscar" for his work. He frequently joked about it. He introduced the 1968 ceremony saying, "Welcome to the Academy Awards. Or, as it's known in my house, Passover." He introduced the 1970 ceremony saying, "Welcome to the Academy Awards. Or, as it's known in my house, Mission: Impossible."

In 1946, Bing bought a 25 percent share of baseball's Pittsburgh Pirates, even though he had no connection to Pittsburgh: He was from Spokane, Washington. The same year, Bob, who was born in England but grew up in Cleveland, bought a share of baseball's Cleveland Indians. The Indians won the World Series in 1948; the Pirates in 1960 and 1971.

But for the first few years of Bing's ownership, the Pirates were terrible. In Road to Bali, Lamour asked Bing, "Do they still have pirates in America?" He said, "Yes, but they're usually in the cellar." Meaning last place. He wasn't kidding: That year, they lost 112 games. The year before, he consented to a movie featuring them, in which they were so bad, they required divine intervention: The original version of Angels in the Outfield.

By the time of Road to Hong Kong, both stars, both born in May 1903, were seen as relics of a previous era. Indeed, one time, when Bing was hosting the TV variety show The Hollywood Palace, Bob showed up, and said he found the theater due to Bing's initials being on it: "ABC: Antique Bing Crosby." (Hope was known for his many TV specials on NBC.)

In 1977, with both men turning 74, Bing talked Bob and Dorothy, who was 62, into "getting the gang back together for one more job." It was to be called Road to the Fountain of Youth. But on October 14, after a round of golf in Spain, Bing had a heart attack and died, his last words being, "That was a great game of golf, fellers." Dorothy lived until 1996, and Bob lived until 2003, like George Burns living just long enough to celebrate his 100th birthday.

Tributes to the Road Pictures have included Mel Brooks' History of the World, Part I in 1981, Spies Like Us in 1985, and Ishtar in 1987. I'm a little surprised that Matt Damon and Ben Affleck -- or even Seth Rogen and Jonah Hill -- haven't tried again. Maybe if John Belushi had lived, he and Dan Aykroyd would have done it.

*

March 14, 1940 was a Thursday. Baseball was in Spring Training. Football was out of season. The NBA hadn't been founded yet. There were 3 games in the NHL:

* The New York Rangers beat their arch-rivals of that period, the New York Americans, 4-2 at the old Madison Square Garden.

* The Detroit Red Wings beat the Montreal Canadiens, 5-2 at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit.

* The Chicago Black Hawks beat the Toronto Maple Leafs, 2-1 at the Chicago Stadium.

* And the Boston Bruins were not scheduled. 

January 4, 1964: "The Hollywood Palace" Premieres

January 4, 1964: The Hollywood Palace premieres on ABC. It was a taped, West Coast, Saturday night counteroffer to CBS' live, New York-based, Sunday night Ed Sullivan Show.

The El Capitan Theatre opened in 1927, under the name The Hollywood Playhouse, with a seating capacity of 1,500 that has always been maintained. In 1952, it hosted Richard Nixon's "Checkers Speech." At that point, it was owned by NBC, and was the filming location for The Colgate Comedy Hour, The Lawrence Welk Show, which switched to ABC in 1955; the game show Truth Or Consequences, which launched host Bob Barker to stardom; and one of the earliest TV reality shows, This Is Your Life.

ABC bought the building in 1963, and renamed it The Hollywood Palace, broadcasting a variety show of the same title there from 1964 to 1970. Bing Crosby hosted the 1st and last shows, and 30 others in between. Once, his former film partner and fellow golf fanatic, NBC icon Bob Hope appeared, and said he found the theater due to Bing's initials being on it: "ABC: Antique Bing Crosby." (In fact, Bing was only 26 days older: He was born on May 3, 1903, and Bob on May 29.)

The show is probably best remembered for its June 13, 1964 episode. Dean Martin was the host, and the Rat Pack singer-actor was terribly uncomfortable with having to introduce, in their 1st U.S. TV appearance, The Rolling Stones. Their rendition of Willie Dixon's blues song "I Just Want to Make Love to You" didn't help: Dean may have been "The King of Cool," but he thought Mick Jagger and company were terribly vulgar. (As if the Rat Pack weren't, during their stage acts in Las Vegas, but they watched their mouths on TV.)

On October 18, 1969, The Jackson Five, including Michael Jackson, made their national television debut on The Hollywood Palace. They were introduced by fellow Motown Records star Diana Ross, and her boss -- and, secretly, her boyfriend -- Berry Gordy Jr. falsely told the media that Diana had "discovered" them.

ABC moved Welk's show back to the building, but sold the building in 1978. On August 6, 1996, The Ramones played what turned out to be their last show there. Since 2004, the theater has operated as a dance club under the name Avalon Hollywood. It is at 1735 N. Vine Street, across from the Capitol Records Tower, 1 block from the famous corner of Hollywood & Vine, and 10 blocks east on Hollywood Boulevard from Grauman's Chinese Theatre.

*

January 4, 1964 was a Saturday. Baseball was in the off-season. The NFL had played its Championship Game the preceding Sunday, December 29, 1963, and the Chicago Bears beat the New York Giants, 14-10. The American Football League played its Championship Game the next day, January 5, and the San Diego Chargers clobbered the New England Patriots, 51-10.

There were 3 games played in the NBA:

* The New York Knicks lost to the Cincinnati Royals, 125-116 at the Old Madison Square Garden. Oscar Robertson scored 41 points for the Royals.

* The Philadelphia 76ers beat the Baltimore Bullets, 123-113 at the Baltimore Civic Center (now known as the CFG Bank Arena). Hal Greer scored 37 points for the Sixers. (If you're wondering about Wilt Chamberlain, he was still with the San Francisco, formerly Philadelphia, Warriors until January 15, 1965.)

* And the Los Angeles Lakers beat the Boston Celtics, 125-118 in overtime at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena. Jerry West scored 36 points. This was a rematch of the last 2 NBA Finals, but the Lakers would not beat the Celtics in the Finals until 1985.