NEW ORLEANS (AP) - British Petroleum will try a new approach to plugging the oil leak that involves forcing a six-inch wide tube into the 21-inch opening inserted deeply enough to siphon oil to a waiting tanker. A BP engineer got the idea while on medical leave preparing for a colonoscopy.
CHICAGO (AP) - Tribune media Services has announced that “Little Orphan Annie,” the iconic cartoon strip that has been the subject of a hit Broadway musical and several movies featuring Annie, her dog Sandy, and Daddy Warbucks, will end publication on June 16. After 80 years, the sun won’t come up tomorrow.
ODESSA, TX (AP) - A twenty-two year old man posing as a 16-year old high school basketball player led Permian High to the Texas state championships. Guerdwich Montimere was was exposed only after he bought his wife a diamond ring after she caught him at the Senior prom with another girl.
CANNES (BBC) - Promoting his new film You will meet a Tall dark Stranger, Woody Allen told reporters, “My relationship with death remains the same. I’m against it.” Discussing the theme of the film which he directed but doesn’t appear in, Allen didn’t repeat his famous line of the 1960s: “I’m not afraid to die. I just don’t want to be there when it happens.”
PHILADELPHIA (BBC) - Postal inspectors discovered 20,000 pieces of mail containing checks, bills and official letters dating back to 1997, stored in the garage of a postman who couldn‘t manage to finish his route each day. Problem was, nobody at the post office took the complaints seriously until he got about ten years behind.
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Excerpted From THE LAUGH MAKERS
Hope specials had been airing regularly, averaging eight-to twelve hours per year, for close to a quarter-century, and they had become, not surprisingly, not very special anymore. So at the behest of Texaco, with whom he had signed a new three-year contract, he agreed to take the show on the road, warming up with a journey to London for 1977’s America Salutes the Queen. Returning home with symptoms of travel bug-itis, he immediately laid plans to take the show to the land Down Under — Australia. He put the two-hour special in the hands of an experienced, Australian-born producer named Chris Bearde — again, bowing to his sponsor, Texaco, who preferred he hire separate producers for each special. The critically acclaimed tour which included stops in Auckland, New Zealand; Sydney; Adelaide; Brisbane; Melbourne and Perth would prove to be a major turning point for the Bob Hope Show, which suddenly acquired wings and could turn up at just about any spot on the globe.
At our production meeting with Chris Bearde, we decided to attack the land of the boomerang on two fronts — the main portion of the show would be taped at the just-completed, 8,300-seat Perth Entertainment Center on the far western coast of the continent. On his way there, Hope would detour to perform monologues at each satellite city along the way. Using the same process he had successfully developed for the overseas Christmas tours, Hope made sure that the writers were well-provided with background information on each city he would visit. Gig, Charlie and I would share writing credit with Bearde and a friend he’d worked with on a few previous shows, David Letterman. Dave was and still is a member of the Writers Guild of America (he paid his writers during the Guild strike in 2007), and that year needed a writing assignment to keep his Guild health insurance current. Having Dave on board wasn’t unusual. Our regular crew was often joined by writers who were brought in by the producers.
Our flight from Los Angeles to Perth would take twenty-three hours, and on board our Quantas 747 were guest stars Barbara Eden, Florence Henderson and Charo as well as twenty Hope staffers that included Les Brown’s musical arranger, Bob Alberti , makeup man Don Marando and Hope’s longtime cue card wizard, Barney McNulty. Eighteen hours after lifting off at LAX, we touched down in Sydney for a two-hour refueling stop before completing the five-hour hop to Perth. The Aussies’ welcome was as warm as the water of the half-mile wide Swan River that flows through the pristine city’s center. I Dream of Jeannie and The Brady Bunch were still in their first runs on Australian TV, so from the moment they stepped off the plane, Barbara and Florence were stalked by screaming, autograph-seeking fans.
(Tomorrow: Hope wows the Aussies with a tailor-made monologue)
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Also available in an unabridged audio version read by the author:
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A Longtime Bob Hope Joke Writer Presents Daily Insightful Topical Satire Of Current Events (Illustrated) Plus Rare Photos From Hollywood's Bygone Era And Excerpts From THE LAUGH MAKERS By Robert L. Mills -- Color Photos From the Book and Rare Classic Vintage Video Clips! Send Your Show Biz Questions to "ASK BOB" at: TheLaughMakers@GMail.com
THE LAUGH MAKERS: A Leonard Maltin "Top 20" Year End Pick!
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