Sunday, December 18, 2016

Your HOLIDAY SOR-BAY: Spielberg, To Tell the Truth and Dr. Seuss’ ‘How The Grinch Stole Christmas


Here is a "HOLIDAY SOR-BAY"

little spark of madness

that we could use to artificially maintain our Christmas spirit.




December 18, 1946
Director Steven Spielberg is born in Cincinnati. 


SANTA 85 from Phil Joanou on Vimeo.
As a boy, Spielberg moved to New Jersey and then Arizona with his parents, an electrical engineer and a concert pianist. Spielberg was a shy youngster and expressed himself by making home movies. By age 12, he was making scripted movies with actors. He won a contest with a 40-minute home movie at age 13 and made a feature-length amateur film at age 17.
Spielberg studied filmmaking at California State College. In 1969, the Atlanta Film Festival screened his short film Amblin', which landed him a job at Universal Studios. He directed his first feature, The Sugarland Express, in 1974. The following year, he helped make movie history with Jaws, a blockbuster that grossed $260 million (the film cost $8.5 million to make).
Spielberg followed Jaws with a succession of megahits, including Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), which grossed $128 million; Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), grossing $242 million; and E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, which took in nearly $400 million.
Spielberg formed an independent company, Amblin Entertainment, in 1984 and began producing such films as Gremlins (1984) and Back to the Future (1985). He took a turn toward more serious subject matter in 1985, directing the critically acclaimed The Color Purple. In 1987, he won the prestigious Irving G. Thalberg Award, which recognized his body of work, at the Academy Awards. However, he didn't win the Oscar for Best Director until 1993, for Schindler's List, a black-and-white drama about Jews working in a Polish factory during World War II. In 1998, Spielberg won another Best Director Oscar® for Saving Private Ryan, which also won Best Picture. Band of Brothers, an HBO miniseries produced by Spielberg, won an Emmy® Award for Best Miniseries in 2002.
In 1994, Spielberg teamed up with Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen to form Dreamworks SKG. He has been married twice, first to Amy Irving and then to Kate Capshaw, who starred with Harrison Ford in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

December 18th, 1956
To Tell the Truth debuted on CBS-TV. 
Created by Bob Stewart and produced by Goodson-Todman Productions that has aired in various forms since 1956 both on networks and in syndication. As of June 14, 2016, the show is one of two game shows in the United States to have aired at least one new episode in at least seven consecutive decades, the other game show being both incarnations of The Price Is Right. As of the 2016 version, a total of 26 seasons of the various versions of To Tell the Truth have been produced, surpassing the 25 of What's My Line? and the 20 of I've Got a Secret.
The show features a panel of four celebrities whose object is the correct identification of a described contestant who has an unusual occupation or has undergone an unusual experience. This "central character" is accompanied by two impostors who pretend to be the central character; together, the three persons are said to belong to a "team of challengers." The celebrity panelists question the three contestants; the impostors are allowed to lie, but the central character is sworn "to tell the truth." After questioning, the panel attempts to identify which of the three challengers is telling the truth and is thus the central character.

December 18th, 1966
Dr. Seuss’ ‘How The Grinch Stole Christmas Debuted on CBS.

How The Grinch Stole Christmas from Basil Bruce on Myspace.
The animated television special directed by Chuck Jones. It is based on the eponymous children's book by Dr. Seuss, the story of The Grinch trying to take away Christmas from the townsfolk ofWhoville below his mountain hideaway. The special, which is considered a short film as it runs less than an hour, is one of the classic Christmas specials from the 1960s still shown regularly on television. Jones and Geisel previously worked together on thePrivate Snafu training cartoons for United Productions of America during World War II.




Stay Tuned


Tony Figueroa

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