It’s November 26, and there have been some interesting events today. I said it’s November 26, and there have been some interesting events today. One of them, all though not the most interesting, is that Tony Verna was born on this date in 1933. For a closer look, that’s this date in 1933. Why am I writing in such an irritating way? Because of Tony Verna, of course. He invented instant replay. But other than that Verna is mostly remembered for the people he worked with as a television producer and director. If you insist on an abbreviated list, here it is: Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, Grace Kelly, Mother Teresa, Edward R. Murrow, Larry King, Rod Stewart, Burt Reynolds, Dizzy Dean, Milton Berle, Duke Ellington, Ray Charles, Mick Jagger, Christopher Reeve, Tom Selleck, Mickey Mantle, Joe DiMaggio, Rocky Marciano, Kirk Douglas, Chevy Chase, Johnny Cash and John Denver. Verna was not, however, the real-life model for Forrest Gump.
There are several people born on November 26 who are known for things that they might be surprised about. How about John Harvard, born in 1607 in England? One of the most famous universities in the world is named after him, but he didn’t have a single thing to do with it. He was not a professor, although he did teach the equivalent of Sunday school classes in the church he was a member of after he emigrated to North America. The reason Harvard’s name is so well known is because, on his deathbed, he bequeathed money to the Massachusetts Bay Colony, to be used to help with the “schoale or colledge” that had already been founded there.
And then there’s Maurice McDonald, born in the US state of New Hampshire in 1902. His name is recognized around the world (not always admiringly) because he and his brother founded McDonald’s restaurant in 1940. He’d be surprised by how ubiquitous McDonald’s has become (in fact he probably was, he lived into the 1970s). That’s because he and his brother founded one little hamburger stand in California. It was Ray Kroc, who bought the business in 1961, who built it into a worldwide fast-food icon.
And if you think about Charlie Brown, who was created by Charles Shulz, born in 1922 in Minnesota in the US, you might also be reminded of Shulz’ other characters: Snoopy the beagle and Lucy in particular. Shulz may have been the most influential cartoonist in history, but his comics were not called Charlie Brown. They weren’t named Snoopy. It wasn’t even called anything related to “Charles Shulz.” His comic script, where all the characters were created and which ran in newspapers for fifty years, was called Peanuts, and Shulz didn’t even like that title. He wanted to call it “Li’l Folk,” but his publisher changed the name because of a television show for children where the live audience was called the “peanut gallery.”
It’s almost like real life consists of a series of absurdist sketches you might see in a play like The Bald Soprano, The Chairs, or The New Tenant. Which are all from Eugène Ionesco, the well known avant-garde playwright whose work marks the start of the theatre of the absurd. He was born November 26, 1909 in Romania. His first play was The Bald Soprano, and in perfect November 26 style, he had called it “the blonde schoolteacher” after one of the characters. But in rehearsal, one of the actors who was supposed to say (in French) “the blonde schoolteacher” flubbed the line and said instead (still in French) “the bald soprano.” Ionesco added the mistake to the play and changed the title.
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