Mikeypedia

On this date (Aug 10) in 1962, a legend was born. In the Marvel comic, Amazing Fantasy, issue #15, we were introduced to The Amazing Spider-Man.

You read that right… Spider-Man is 50 years old!

In the early 60s, Stan Lee was trying to differentiate Marvel comics from the superhero archetypes that DC Comics had been developing – supremely powerful beings with virtually no serious flaws. The DC heroes were unattainable ideals… sure, Superman was vulnerable to kryptonite, but that wasn’t a bad trade-off for being basically a demigod. Yeah, Batman was an orphan with no real powers, but he more than made up for it by being a gazillionaire genius martial artist with a flair for the dramatic.

Stan Lee didn’t want heroes that were ideals to which kids would aspire, he wanted heroes with which kids could actually identify. A typical nerdy high-schooler, Peter Parker was just the type of kid that would resonate with the average comic book reader.

I’d like to think that I wasn’t an average comic book reader, but I loved this idea. Regardless of my wildest dreams, there was literally no way that it would suddenly be revealed that I was from another planet, with fantastic superpowers resulting from Earth’s yellow sun… But there was a chance – however microscopic – that I, too, could be bitten by a radioactive spider, acquiring amazing abilities. After all, that wasn’t science fiction – that was science!!

It was a formula for success. Now we had a hero who could do wondrous things, but that also worried about maintaining his grade point average while keeping up with his part-time job, and not looking too dumb in front of the girls.

And, in case I didn’t emphasize this point, he was a teenager… At this point, teens in comics were the sidekicks. Captain America had Bucky. Batman had Robin. But Spidey wasn’t a sidekick. He was the hero.

Add in his snarky sense of humor, colorful costume, and constant insecurity, and you have the perfect superhero for teenagers.

It’s no surprise that Spider-Man is Marvel’s flagship character, or that he made #3 on IGN’s Top 100 Comic Book Heroes of All Time last year.

Comics, animated and live-action TV shows, newspaper comic strips, video games, movies, and even a Broadway musical… I think it’s safe to say that Spidey has made it.

Happy birthday, Webhead. You definitely make turning 50 look pretty good!

On this date (Aug 6), in 1911, Lucille Désirée Ball was born in Jamestown, NY. She was a groundbreaking comedian; a model; a radio, stage, TV, and film actress; and a film & TV executive. She nominated for 13 Emmy Awards (winning four of them), and was the first woman to run a major television studio.

I am not exaggerating when I say that Desilu was a major studio. In case you think Desilu was only famous for I Love Lucy, here’s just a partial list of other shows produced and/or filmed by Desilu:

  • The Andy Griffith Show
  • Mission Impossible
  • The Dick Van Dyke Show
  • Family Affair
  • The Untouchables
  • I Spy
  • That Girl
  • Hogan’s Heroes

And the one for which I’m most grateful: Star Trek. In fact, in a very real sense, Star Trek would never have happened if not for Ms Ball. During the time the two Trek pilots were being produced, TV networks were changing the way they paid for shows – the end result being that Desilu was going to be on the hook for 20% of the costs of each episode… and for a budget-hungry program like Star Trek, that was a lot of money. Money that wouldn’t be recouped unless the show went into syndication.

Despite the reluctance of many of Desilu’s conservative board members, the decision to move forward was in the hands of the owner of Desilu… Lucille Ball herself. She went with her gut, made the decision.

Thanks to Lucille Ball, television allowed us to go to the final frontier.

So I love Lucy. I loved “Ba-ba-loo!” and “Vita-meata-veg-amins” and Lucy crushing wine grapes with her feet and losing her mind as those chocolates just kept coming down that conveyor belt!

But the biggest reason why I love Lucy is that she had a huge hand in helping us go where no one had gone before.

Do you find it a coincidence that that we’re all celebrating the fact that our new rover, Curiosity, landed on the red planet on the 101st birthday of everyone’s favorite redhead?

Fascinating… !

On this date (Aug 3), in 1936, a couple of young African American men from the South showed the world that Adolf Hitler’s Aryan idealism was worth about as much as the penny we talked about yesterday.

Exactly 76 years ago today, the medal race for the men’s 100m sprint was run. Jesse Owens won the gold medal, and Ralph Metcalfe won silver. Jesse went on to win three more gold medals in that Olympics – for the long jump, the 200m sprint, and the 4X100m relay.

The race was groundbreaking in more ways than one: just before the 100m race, Owens received a visitor in the Olympic village. Adi Dassler, the founder of Adidas shoes, persuaded Owens to wear Adidas shoes in his races. It was the first sports sponsorship for a male African-American athlete.

The story isn’t all happy…

When Owens was in Germany, there weren’t any restrictions on his travel or accomodations. He even stayed in the same hotels as his white teammates. But when he returned, things hadn’t changed. There was a ticker-tape parade along Fifth Avenue in New York City in his honor, but in order to get to the reception held in his honor at the Waldorf-Astoria, he still had to take the freight elevator.

It’s a bit hard to believe, but he was never invited to the White House. Neither President Roosevelt nor his successor Truman bestowed any honors upon him at all. When members of the press asked Owens what it felt like to be snubbed by Adolf Hitler, he replied, “Hitler didn’t snub me – it was FDR who snubbed me. The president didn’t even send me a telegram.” Hitler’s gift was a bit scary (a commemorative inscribed photo of himself), but it was at least an acknowledgement. Finally, in 1955, President Eisenhower made him an “Ambassador of Sports.” And eventually, in 1976, President Ford awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

There is no doubt that race relations have improved in this county. But it is important to recognize that we are nowhere near done. Just this last month we heard about a Baptist church in Mississipi that told Charles and Te’Andrea Wilson that they couldn’t marry in their church because they were black. In March of this year, almost 30% of GOP voters in the Deep South said that interracial marriage should be illegal.

So the struggle continues, but thanks to people like Jesse Owens, I have hope.

I know this post isn’t as funny as my normal fare, but sometimes even I can get a little serious… apparently!

On this date (Aug 2), in 1909, the first Lincoln head pennies were minted. 1909 was the centennial of Lincoln’s birth, and his profile on the penny was a memorial to The Great Emancipator.

Officially called the “cent” by the US Mint, or the “one cent piece” by the US Treasury (the term penny is a holdover from the British coin), the penny has been a part of US currency in one form or another since 1793. Over the years, it’s had a number of different designs, had a number of different metal compositions, and been worth less and less every year.

In fact, as of this year, a cent costs the US Mint 2.41 cents to make, so you might say the penny is worth less than nothing. In 2011 alone, the loss was $60.2 million.

Yes, you read that right… in an era when the economy is the biggest non-chicken-sandwich-or-Kardashian-related story, we spent more than sixty million dollars to keep making pennies. In contrast, it costs 5.5 cents to print the $1 and $2 bills. Now there’s a profit I can get behind!

Aside from the loss of money the penny represents, I think what bugs me most is the impact the drastic reduction of the penny’s value has on our cultural metaphors.

Now, when you offer me a penny for my thoughts, what you’re really saying is that I owe you 1.41¢, just for thinking! When I offer you my 2¢, I’m really asking you to pay me 2.82¢ just to hear my opinion! The old proverb a penny saved is a penny earned should really be a penny saved is 1.41¢ in debt!

What would Dave Ramsey say??

So, happy 103rd birthday, Lincoln penny. And remember another famous proverb:

See a penny, pick it up, and all day long you’ll have a negative 1.41¢!

On this date (August 1), in 1981, the landscape of entertainment was permanently altered.
MTV began broadcasting, opening just after midnight with footage from the countdown and launch of Columbia, the inaugural mission of NASA’s late space shuttle program. Over that footage was a voiceover: “Ladies and gentlemen, rock and roll!” Then the MTV theme song started playing over more images of the space program, including shots of the Apollo 11 moon landing.

Then, finally, the point of this upstart new network: music. First, Video Killed the Radio Star by the Buggles, and then You Better Run by Pat Benatar. And with that, a new wave (HA!) swept across the land.

At that point in history, MTV had no shortage of detractors, from the Religious Right and their fear of Satanic (or at least inappropriate) imagery and the dreadful effects of the stopped anapestic beat, to our parents, who said, “Yeah, I loved rock and roll in my day, but I didn’t want to SEE them!”

But there was no stopping it. Millions of kids – and the adults who were clever enough to make money off them – joined Sting as he crooned in Dire Straits’ background: “I want my MTV!!”

I didn’t watch it as much as some of my friends and peers, but I watched plenty. I marveled at some of those innovative, game-changing videos – Take On Me by A-ha, Sledgehammer by Peter Gabriel, Rockit by Herbie Hancock, pretty much everything from Michael Jackson… they changed the way video was shot, edited, and presented. To be honest, I still kinda wish they hadn’t started that whole super shaky camera style that’s everywhere now, but they didn’t really ask me. And I still haven’t forgiven them for The Real World – the embryo which eventually grew into that horrible genre, Reality TV.

Of course, MTV didn’t really invent the music video. I think that honor probably goes to the Beatles and Richard Lester, the director of A Hard Day’s Night. But MTV was definitely the carrier that turned videos into a full on pandemic. Its influence can be seen everywhere, from television to fashion to technology to politics. It had an enormous impact on my generation, and we, in turn, spread that love to those who came after. You’re welcome.

Like a vast majority of Saturday Night Live sketches, MTV may have gone on a bit longer than it should have. Currently it’s influence isn’t as great as it once was. But there is no denying that MTV changed the world. And while I know without a doubt that my mom would disagree, I believe that change was for the better.