;

TUESDAY, July 24, 2012


JOLLY GOOD SHOW -- For the first time in the 75-year history of the Tour de France, a British subject named Bradley Williams blazed across the finish line first to claim the prestigious yellow jersey.  Organizers had to delay the trophy-presentation ceremony at the Champs-Elysees several hours as they scrambled to find enough French musicians who knew the arrangement to "God Save the Queen."

 


ST. VALENTINES DAY -- The ten-bedroom, football-field-sized waterfront mansion on Florida's Biscayne Bay that was once owned by 1930s mobster Al Capone is up for sale with an asking price of $9.95 million.  Included is a huge recreation room, a private dock, a 10,000 bottle wine cellar, an Olympic size swimming pool and the safe that forced Geraldo Rivera to ad lib for two hours when he failed to find anything in it.      

 


HOT TIP -- If you're betting on the Olympics, double down on Japanese gymnast Kohei Uchimura who has won three consecutive world championships and in 2009 and 2011 copped firsts in four of the six disciplines: floor exercise, pommel horse, rings, vault, parallel bars and horizontal bar.  With a gold in London, he'll be considered the greatest gymnast who ever lived.  And if that weren't enough, his friends say his sushi is to die for.

 


WEST SIDE STORY -- Faced with spiraling casualty counts resulting from ever-escalating gang warfare, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has sought gang control advice from Crips and Bloods-savvy Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.  Nice idea maybe, but isn't that a tad like Penn State asking the pope for advice on how to prevent child sex abuse?

 

NUDE & LEWD -- The film rights to the best-seller "50 Shades of Grey," which has been described by critics as a Western version of the Kama Sutra, have been purchased by Focus Features after a fierce bidding war.  The producers are well aware that they can forget about a PG rating unless they can tone down the shades of grey into more young-adult friendly shades of blue.




CRIME SPREE -- Zero Mostel-like Jeffrey Barron was a bachelor who slept all day and wrote for Bob Hope at night. He had his own table at Lowry’s House of Prime Rib; and while with SCTV in Montreal, lived in a hotel for two seasons “... for the room service,” as he explained it. Jeff was a shrewd investor who owned several houses in Beverly Hills, though he lived in a small apartment. One evening, while collecting rent, he was questioned by a couple of Beverly Hills cops.  “What are you doing here,” they demanded.  “I own that house,” Jeff replied.  “Next time take a cab. Nobody walks in Beverly Hills." 

For more backstage photos from the Bob Hope Show, click here... 

Copyright (c) 2012 by Robert L. Mills  All Rights Reserved
 

Click here to add theme music to your reading experience...

THE LAUGH MAKERS: A Leonard Maltin "Top 20" Year End Pick!

DOLORES HOPE MEDLEY

DOLORES HOPE "Silver Bells" (with Bob)

BOB HOPE'S 1983 U.S. COLLEGE CAMPUS TOUR: Your Alma Mater Here?


"Having spent twenty years writing for the indefatigable Bob Hope, and traveling all over the world, Bob Mills is well qualified to salute the famous corps of gag men who kept the comedian knee-deep in jokes. These first-hand recollections summon up the final phase of Hope’s career—and the end of the trail for an entire brand of show business."

http://www.leonardmaltin.com/2009YearEndBookSurvey.htm

Even Animals Love "THE YouTube WORLDWIDE NEWS"!


THE LAUGH MAKERS is now on KINDLE! (And Kindle equipped devices)

Download THE LAUGH MAKERS to your Kindle within one minute (for $2.99) by clicking on this link:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0041D9EPO

And if you're not yet a Kindle owner, when you purchase your new lower-priced Kindle with a capacity of 3500 books, be sure to sign up for our daily blog so you won't miss one issue of the web's most entertaining and insightful comments on the day's events... or a single serialized installment of THE LAUGH MAKERS. Order your Kindle today!


WakiLeaks: History Declassified 2000 (Vol. One) is now available on Kindle for $2.99

Compiled from Bob's newsletter "Funnyside Up" published in 2000. This is a yuck and chuckle-filled stroll down memory lane to a time before the Bush administration had inflicted its damage -- a time before the search for WMDs and Osama bin Laden. See what we were laughing at back then, who was in the news and who had yet to enter rehab -- which NFL stars had yet to do time in the Gray Bar Hotel.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004IZLXIQ