Question: What was the first feature-length American movie to include a nude scene, not counting porn?
Answer: Inspiration (1915) is generally cited as the first American movie to contain a nude scene; it starred well-known artist’s model Audrey Munson as a country girl who moves to the big city, becomes a nude model and falls in love with a sculptor. Inspiration was short by today’s standards, but it was feature-length by the standards of the day. Munson made three more films, Purity (1916), Girl o’ Dreams (1917) and Heedless Moths (1921), and she appeared naked in all of them.
In 1916, Australian swimmer Annette Kellerman starred in the lavish fantasy A Daughter of the Gods, widely cited as Hollywood’s first million-dollar production and by all accounts at least two hours long. But it has been lost,
read more
Question: Here's something I'd like to settle. Where did the phrase "bigger than a bread box" come from? My mom says it's from an old show, but since she can't remember which one, I'm not sure if she's right or not. I figured you would know since you know everything. Thanks.
Answer: Always listen to your mother, Carrie. Well, except for when she's wrong, but this ain't one of those times. "Is it bigger than a bread box?" was made famous by the late Steve Allen during his appearances on the classic game show What's My Line?, which debuted on CBS in February 1950 and, at its zenith, was wildly popular among the privileged class and hoi polloi alike.
In case your mom can't give you a refresher, the show's premise was simple. A person with an interesting occupation was brought on and a panel of regulars tried to guess what the job was while asking only yes-or-n
read more
It's only one day into the summer Television Critics Association press tour in Beverly Hills, and already we've seen one of the best shows (albeit not on TV) that we're likely to get in the next three weeks of hype and schmooze.
The occasion: a panel late Tuesday afternoon promoting Pioneers of Primetime, a PBS special (airing Nov. 9) about the legendary vaudevillian clowns who first made TV popular. Several gave their final TV interviews for this documentary, including the late Milton Berle, Steve Allen and Red Skelton — who turned down producer Steve Boettcher's interview requests at least half a dozen times before relenting and rewarding him with three and a half hours shortly before he died.
At TCA, this all-star panel of 80-something golden-age talent, which at first glance promised to be an exercise in fawning nostalgia, quickly turned into a rollicking display of classic shtick, as Red Buttons and Carl Reiner me
read more
