Jackie Cooper's Celebrity Deaths

[Emerkeith Davyjack]

The death of former child actor Jackie Cooper ( not to be confused with the , somewhat less fortunate as an adult and , infamously , ripped off by his parents Jackie Coogan ) inspires me to start a " Celebrity Deaths - That , Um , Don't Have The Most Obvious Connectuions To Our Beloved Genre , As Those Folks Will Tend To Get A Solo Thread , Admittedly..." omnibus thread .

  Directly , Cooper played Perry White in the Salkind/Reeve series of Superman movies , and , as per Wikipedia , about the last thing he did in the directing of episodic TV series that occupied much of his later working years were episodes of the Salkind Superboy series...

  Cooper also starred in the CBS series Hennessy ( Probably the subject of a couple Dell FOUR COLOR COMICS issues anyway , wasn't it ????????? ) , enthused over by our Cmdr. Benson , and another B&W-era series , The People's Choice .

  In pre-TV days movies with ____ ____ made them something of a team

[Commander Benson]

For years, I've been expecting to see in "The Straight Dope", or one of those other answer-question-type columns, someone ask:  "Why do people call it 'dialing a phone number', when we push buttons to do it?"

 

Within recent memory, I've had to explain to grown men in their thirties . . . .

 

1.  How a console stereo works.  (The owner inherited it from his grandmother and he thought it was broken because he couldn't push his albums---O.K., he had vinyl; I'll give him that---down the spindle onto the turntable ["There's some sort of flange at the top that won't let me push the record down . . . ."] and he complained that, when he switched it on, all that happened was that the needle arm rose up, then set back down, and the stereo shut itself off.)

 

2.  How to tie a necktie!  (He asks me to meet him, explains he's going to a funeral the next day, hands me a cravat, and asks me to show him how to tie it.  When I finally got the astonished look off my face---this fellow was no country bumpkin; he was reasonably intelligent and grew up in normal civilisation---I told him, "Sure.  Do you want a four-in-hand knot, a Windsor knot, or a half-Windsor?"  He replied, "Smart ass!")

Speaking of neckties, I was just telling the Good Mrs. Benson how dopey it looks to see businessmen taking off their suit jackets in restaurants at lunchtime and having their neckties flipped back over their shoulders while they eat.

 

 

 

[Mark S. Ogilvie]

  I've never had trouble understanding either, but then even as a kid I had a yen for history.  Mild Mannered Reporter though?  I never saw that in the movies.

Captain Comics said:

I wonder if the next generation will understand newspaper movies and concepts at all. "Mild-mannered reporter for a great metropolitan newspaper? What's that?"

It already weirds me out that the concerns, clothes, slang, customs and hairstyles of 1960s and 1970s -- so familiar to me -- are as ancient and abstruse to my nephews as the 1930s and 1940s are to me.

[Mark S. Ogilvie]

  I had a console once that broke and the arm only went up and down. 

Commander Benson said:

For years, I've been expecting to see in "The Straight Dope", or one of those other answer-question-type columns, someone ask:  "Why do people call it 'dialing a phone number', when we push buttons to do it?"

 

Within recent memory, I've had to explain to grown men in their thirties . . . .

 

1.  How a console stereo works.  (The owner inherited it from his grandmother and he thought it was broken because he couldn't push his albums---O.K., he had vinyl; I'll give him that---down the spindle onto the turntable ["There's some sort of flange at the top that won't let me push the record down . . . ."] and he complained that, when he switched it on, all that happened was that the needle arm rose up, then set back down, and the stereo shut itself off.)

 

2.  How to tie a necktie!  (He asks me to meet him, explains he's going to a funeral the next day, hands me a cravat, and asks me to show him how to tie it.  When I finally got the astonished look off my face---this fellow was no country bumpkin; he was reasonably intelligent and grew up in normal civilisation---I told him, "Sure.  Do you want a four-in-hand knot, a Windsor knot, or a half-Windsor?"  He replied, "Smart ass!")

Speaking of neckties, I was just telling the Good Mrs. Benson how dopey it looks to see businessmen taking off their suit jackets in restaurants at lunchtime and having their neckties flipped back over their shoulders while they eat.

 

 

 

[Emerkeith Davyjack]

...Remember how some editions of double LPs would , for " stacking convenience " , have the first disc be sides 1/4 of the album sequence and the 2nd LP 2/3 ????????? I disliked that , but I remember Me Mum saying (to the effect of) " even tho it isn't hip , I like it " !!!!!!!!!

Mark S. Ogilvie said:

  I had a console once that broke and the arm only went up and down. 

Commander Benson said:

For years, I've been expecting to see in "The Straight Dope", or one of those other answer-question-type columns, someone ask:  "Why do people call it 'dialing a phone number', when we push buttons to do it?"

 

Within recent memory, I've had to explain to grown men in their thirties . . . .

 

1.  How a console stereo works.  (The owner inherited it from his grandmother and he thought it was broken because he couldn't push his albums---O.K., he had vinyl; I'll give him that---down the spindle onto the turntable ["There's some sort of flange at the top that won't let me push the record down . . . ."] and he complained that, when he switched it on, all that happened was that the needle arm rose up, then set back down, and the stereo shut itself off.)

 

2.  How to tie a necktie!  (He asks me to meet him, explains he's going to a funeral the next day, hands me a cravat, and asks me to show him how to tie it.  When I finally got the astonished look off my face---this fellow was no country bumpkin; he was reasonably intelligent and grew up in normal civilisation---I told him, "Sure.  Do you want a four-in-hand knot, a Windsor knot, or a half-Windsor?"  He replied, "Smart ass!")

Speaking of neckties, I was just telling the Good Mrs. Benson how dopey it looks to see businessmen taking off their suit jackets in restaurants at lunchtime and having their neckties flipped back over their shoulders while they eat.

 

 

 

[Jimmm Kelly]

I learned how to tie a full Windsor when I was 18 and in the navy. I always tie a full Windsor because it looks proper. Seeiing all them guys wearing half Windsors drives me 'round the bend--twice over.

[ClarkKent_DC]

Jimmm Kelly said:

I learned how to tie a full Windsor when I was 18 and in the navy. I always tie a full Windsor because it looks proper. Seeiing all them guys wearing half Windsors drives me 'round the bend--twice over.

 

I taught myself how to tie a full Windsor and a half Windsor, back when John T. Molloy's book Dress for Success was all the rage. I practically know it by heart. I go with either a full Windsor or a half-Windsor as the mood and need strikes -- with some ties, the fabric is so thick, a full Windsor is difficult and a half-Windsor is better. And with other ties, the length is such that I need one knot or the other to make it come out right -- which is, the tip of the tie should fall at the top of the belt buckle. What doesn't look right is the four-in-hand, which I know how to do but never use; it's asymmetrical, and always looks wrong to me.

On the other hand, I have not been able to tie a bowtie! I understand that, in theory, it's done the exact same way one ties one's shoelaces. That I know how to do; I've been doing that so long, I don't even remember when or how I learned to do it. But I can't make it work doing it around my neck.

Commander Benson said:

Speaking of neckties, I was just telling the Good Mrs. Benson how dopey it looks to see businessmen taking off their suit jackets in restaurants at lunchtime and having their neckties flipped back over their shoulders while they eat.

 

True dat. If you're that much of a slob when you eat, you have no business even eating in public. 

[Jimmm Kelly]

Strangely enough, when I was around five or so, I could never learn how to tie my shoe laces and it caused me a lot of grief as a kid. But my parents bought me slip-on shoes so I wouldn't have to be embarssed at school. Eventually someone--I wish I could remember who, because they saved my life--showed me how to tie my shoes a different way by making a bow of each end and tying those bows together. I could do that, so I didn't have any problems after that and I eventually learned the usual way of tying shoes. Although I still preferred slip-ons.

My father probably showed me how to tie a tie when I was a kid, but he always tied a half Windsor. He was a postman and had his tie pre-tied so he could get dressed fast in the morning, since he had to get up at 4 am every day (except Sundays). That tie looked terrible, like a strangled chicken.

When I was in the navy and I had to go on parade in full dress, I would often get a dressing down at inspection. One of the other guys showed me how to tie a full Windsor and at least I didn't have to put up with remarks about my tie (my shoes and my hair and my Irish pennants were another story).

[Lee Semmens]

Commander Benson said:

For years, I've been expecting to see in "The Straight Dope", or one of those other answer-question-type columns, someone ask:  "Why do people call it 'dialing a phone number', when we push buttons to do it?"

A few years ago, a letter writer to the local newspaper complained about people who were still referring to "ringing" up someone, when hardly anyone uses a rotary telephone these days, but push-button ones instead.

Silly me, I was always under the impression that the "ringing" was reference to the sound of the bell of the phone at the other end! I still think that is what is meant by "ringing" up someone.

[Emerkeith Davyjack]

...The obvious "answer " to the Cmdr.'s question in general is that vernacular terms , once established , remain even after they don't quit literally apply to what they describe , at least as much as before , as they're the well established terms now...

[Captain Comics]

That's true, and while I can't think of any off-hand, we all use terms and phrases every day that are archaic without really thinking about it. Every once in a while I'll use some term and turn to my wife and say, "you know, I don't even know what that means." I always make a mental note to Google it, which I promptly forget.

People 100 years from now might still say "dial a phone"" just because it's imbedded in the vernacular. They just won't know what it means!

[ClarkKent_DC]

Yeah. The Class of 2016 Beloit College Mindset List has pointed out that computer icons have an image of a dial telephone for calling, an image of a standard envelope for e-mail, and an image of a floppy disk for saving files -- things today's tech-savvy youngsters have never used and most have never seen, except on TV. 

[Emerkeith Davyjack]

...LOU REED , of Velvety Underground and his solo carea(Sp)r , died .

 He was 71 .