Fun Fact(s) Friday: They All Laughed

While watching an interview with Fred Astaire on The Dick Cavett Show, I was struck by the number of Ohioans mentioned in the Gershwin tune 'They All Laughed', which Astaire performed upon request. Although the only state mentioned in the lyrics is Missouri, at least five of the nine influential people cited have some connection to Ohio.  While I would love to count Fred Astaire as an Ohioan, he (like Dick Cavett) was born in Nebraska.  (Yet, it's now known that Cavett has a closer connection to Ohio than his work with Jack Paar and that's because he's married to Ohioan Martha Rogers.) Now, back to the song, the following names dropped do all bear some connection to Ohio:

Christopher Columbus:  Yea, yea, yea, I know he's an Italian that sailed for the crown of Spain, 'discovered' America and contributed to the spread of syphilis but he's also the namesake for Ohio's capital.   The world's most authentic and museum-quality replica of the flagship Santa Maria is docked in Columbus, Ohio.
(Ohio tree that predated 1492 falls)

Thomas A. Edison:  The man responsible for the phonograph, kinetoscope and the home-friendly light bulb was born in Milan, Ohio.

Orville & Wilbur Wright:  The brothers that taught the world to fly, owned a bicycle shop and lived nearly their entire lives in Dayton, Ohio.
Aviators:  The Wright Brothers by Bill Gates

Rockefeller Center is named after the philanthropist John D. Rockefeller, Jr., who was born in Cleveland, Ohio.

Update:  Was pleasantly surprised to hear this exact version of 'They All Laughed' played in a cafe in Islington last week.

The brooding, sensitive Freddie

How often does Luke Perry come up in conversation?!?!?  Not very.  So after two mentions of the James Dean look-a-like came up (with reference to BtVS film and the original Beverly Hills, 90210 series) in discussions yesterday with my friend Lauren, I thought I should dedicate a few words to the Ohio native.  This will be a bit telling of my age but the original cast of 90210 were supposed to be the same age as myself and their fictional class also graduated from high school and went off to college in 1993.  The character Dylan McKay, a brooding and sensitive rich boy managed to hit the right note for me as I was going through a James Dean and Laurence Olivier's Heathcliff phase at the time (to be completely honest, perhaps it was just the beginning).  Well, to get back to Perry, he was born in Mansfield, which is about 30 miles from my hometown, and grew up in Fredericktown.  It's been stated in interviews that Perry likes to return to Fredericktown annually for their Tomato Show.

Baseball 90210  

Fun Fact Friday: 15 Down

In the most recent 'The Guardian Weekend' (17 September 2011, pg. 93), the clue for 15 Down in the General Knowledge Crossword was:  City of Ohio where agreement was reached in 1995 to end the war in Bosnia (6).

Answer?:  Dayton

Ziggy's Legacy

Although Ziggy may not be my favorite comic (and yes, it also has an important Ohio connection), I do have fond childhood memories of the sweet down-trodden guy, who is now know the world over. It is therefore very sad news to hear that the funny little everyman's creator passed away on Friday.  Tom Wilson was born in West Virginia and raised in Pennsylvania but spent the majority of his adult life in Ohio with secondary homes in Hollywood and New York.  His son, who graduated from my alma mater and now lives in Loveland (a northern Cincinnati suburb), has been drawing the comic strip since 1987.

Scooby Dooby Doo

Scooby-Doo has been popping up in my life quite a bit recently and although I sometimes find myself saying 'Ruh-roh', I was never a big fan of the canine capers.  Yet, I do recall always preferring those episodes that starred legendary comedic geniuses like Jonathan Winters, Tim Conway and Phyllis Diller, all of whom as you may know or are capable of guessing, are Ohioans.

Winters grew up around Dayton, attended Kenyon College and was a central Ohio radio personality before hitting the American comedy circuit.  

Two Ohioans (Jack Paar & JW) in England

JW and Dean Martin...'it's a regular Ohio cigarette'
Certifiably Jonathan

Tim Conway was born in Willoughby, grew up in Chagrin Falls, attended Bowling Green State University, worked for a Cleveland radio station and continued to appear on Cleveland television shows after becoming famous.
Tim Conway Remembers
Dentist Sketch - The Carol Burnett Show
'Dorf' with Johnny Carson

Phyllis Diller grew up in Lima, attended Bluffton College with Hugh Downs and worked in radio in California, not Ohio, before making the big-time.
Ms. Distinctive on 'What's My Line?'
Still fab at 90 on 'Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me'
Still Cackling



Alright, now how bizarre is this, it also turns out that the hometown of Mystery Inc. is Coolsville, Ohio (not to be confused with the real Coolville, Ohio).  That's right, Scooby and the gang are all Ohioans too!!

'Scooby-Doo Theme Song' performed by the bubblegum pop group Ohio Express.

Ohio Impromptu

I first stumbled upon this Samuel Beckett playlet months ago when I was gathering ideas for entries centered around poetry, which was suggested by my friend Jessica and cousin Eric.  These two have degrees in writing and literature while I, a biologist, recall being terrified by the prospect of presenting an analysis of Heinrich Heine's poetry for a German Literature class full of writing/literature majors in college.  I still would like to know whose brilliant idea it was to have the only science major in the entire class attempt that task when, to this day, the only poetry that actually 'speaks' to me is that of William Blake and Shel Silverstein.  So before I attempt more scary tasks in the realm of poetry, I'm going to go with something I feel a bit more at home with: prose, especially of the morose and existential variety.  
        

And now seems a more appropriate time than any to tackle this entry  as I look at the books belonging to the young man from whom I'm subletting.  This young German student has an apparent penchant for Beckett as three of the 12 volumes on his shelf are either about or by the Irish playwright.
         

The playlet 'Ohio Impromptu' was written in 1980 as a favor for S.E. Gontarski, who requested a dramatic piece to be performed at an academic symposium in Columbus, Ohio in honor of Beckett's seventy-fifth birthday.  While the location of the symposium most likely factored in the title, it has also been suggested that the title is very important in understanding the play (see Kesim):  

"Ohio" is the answer of an American children's riddle which goes "what is high in the middle
and round at the ends or high in the middle and nothing at the ends". The answer to both
versions is "Ohio". This gives the central theme of Beckett' s play: "two voids or "nothings"-birth and death- and between the high of life, the double inhalation and exhalation of breath that sandwich life" (Ben-Zvi, 175)

Yet, I always think it's best for people to experience and decide such things on their own so here is the playlet, in its entirety (approximately 10 minutes), performed by the amazing Jeremy Irons:   Ohio Impromptu

Fun Fact Friday: Bueller? .....Bueller?

I had such high hopes for Without A Clue, a comedy with Ben Kingsley and Michael Caine that's an alternate representation of Sherlock Holmes as a fictional concoction of Dr. Watson, but it just wasn't that funny or engaging.  Yet, it did have Jeffrey Jones as Inspector Lestrade, which reminded me of an important John Hughes film, Ferris Bueller's Day Off (well to be fair, Ferris has also come up in many conversations recently).  Jones is probably best known for his role as Ed Rooney, the principal determined to track down the charming and elusive truant Ferris.  This was one of those seminal films in my adolescence and was in a constant viewing rotation with The Goonies and The Lost Boys.  It may be set in Chi-town but it wouldn't have been much of anything without Ohio.  Well, at the very least, some of the most memorable characters would perhaps be quite different in our minds today if Ohio wasn't a factor:

1.  Alan Ruck (Cameron Frye) was born in Cleveland and attended high school in Parma.
2.  Matthew Broderick (Ferris Bueller) is married to Sarah Jessica Parker (Sex and the City fame), who was born in Nelsonville, Ohio and later moved to Cincinnati, Ohio before moving to New York to further her career as a child actor.  SJP attended The School for Creative and Performing Arts (SCPA) when her family was based in Cincinnati.
3.  Jennifer Grey's (Jeannie Bueller) father is Joel Grey, who is perhaps best known as the Master of Ceremonies in the film version of Cabaret.  Joel grew up in Cleveland, Ohio and began his career as a child actor in the Cleveland Playhouse.
4.  Charlie Sheen's (Boy in Police Station) dad, Martin Sheen, grew up in Dayton, Ohio

FBDO Trailer
Cameron Montage
Broderick interview with focus on FBDO
Charlie Sheen and Jennifer Grey in FBDO
Obama campaign ad Ferris Bueller-style

Fun Fact Friday: The Endearing Ted Mosby

Alright, I may never become a fan of How I Met Your Mother despite finding all of the characters endearing, especially the main character, Ted Mosby.  Yet, I do quite like the fact that such a quirky and romantically optimistic male lead is an Ohioan. While the character Ted hails from Shaker Heights, Ohio and is a graduate of Wesleyan University, the actor that plays Ted, Josh Radnor, is originally from Bexley, Ohio and graduated from Kenyon College, where he won the Paul Newman Award.

Radnor:  Not your average TV Star
Interview with first question about coming from Ohio