"Ask Cool Daddy 4"
Dear Cool Daddy: Did we ever find out why the 1969 disaster film "Krakatoa, East of Java" was so named, when that island volcano is actually west of Java?
No authoritative explanation has ever emerged, altho there are a couple of stories out there. One says the mistake wasn't noticed until after the advertising and publicity material had been prepared, and it was too late by then to change it. Another says that the producers knew it was wrong from the beginning, but just preferred the sound of it, calling to mind the popular movie "East of Eden" from 1955. And as it was pointed out at the time, since the world is round, Krakatoa really is east of Java...eventually!
My personal theory is that they may have been confusing the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa with the 1815 eruption of Mt. Tambora, which is indeed located east of Java. Tambora is believed to be the biggest volcanic explosion in recorded history. It spewed 40 cubic miles of ash and another 400 cubic miles of sulfurous gas into the atmosphere, disrupting agriculture worldwide, and resulting, a year later, in The Year Without a Summer, when snow fell in July over Maine and northern Europe. Tambora killed 10,000 outright, and another 60,000 due to starvation and disease.
Krakatoa was bad, but not that bad. It received more worldwide notice because it was in the middle of international shipping lanes, while to that extent, Tambora was more "out of the way." When the movie was re-released to theaters, it was renamed "Volcano," altho it's back to the original infamous title on DVD. And it's a shame that it's mainly remembered for the geographical goof-up, since it's an excellent movie, especially the tidal wave effects, still impressive 40 years later.
Dear Cool Daddy: Franco-American canned spaghetti was a staple on Baby Boomer lunch-tables…but am I the only one who noticed that while spaghetti is Italian, “Franco” means “French”?
Well, at our house “franco-american” was the generic term for that mushy, orange-colored pasta…if Chef Boy-ar-dee was on sale and Mom fixed it for us, we’d look at our plates and say: “Oh boy, franco-american!” And I really did like it…it had a pleasant little tang to it, as I recall. We would also from time to time have real spaghetti, in a real sauce with meatballs, so we didn’t really think of Franco-American as spaghet’, any more than we would macaroni or lasagna. But I noticed it was "French" eventually, and the reason is what you might expect...the company was started by a French immigrant, Alphonse Biardot, in Jersey City in 1886.
His most prominent line was soups, many with a decidedly French twist…green turtle, terrapin, chicken consommé, purée of game, mulligatawny, mock turtle, ox-tail, tomato, chicken gumbo, French bouillon, julienne, pea, printanier, mutton broth, vegetable, beef, pearl tapioca, clam broth, clam chowder, and others. The Franco-American Food Company also made canned sauces, patés, custards, and puddings…in fact, an early advertisement reads: "English Plum Pudding made by a Frenchman! Why Not?"
They were sold to Campbell’s Soup in 1915, accelerating the ethnic diversification. The earliest I can find Franco-American spaghetti is around 1930…and it was marketed as being in the style of Milan…“à la Milanaise”…which is of course French…in English that would traditionally be “Milanese”…today you also see “Milano”…in Italian it's “alla Milanese.” There seems to be no agreement as to what style that is today…sauce having cream as a key ingredient…or fennel and sardines…or ham and mushrooms…or who knows? Back then, it was parenthetically explained as “tomato sauce with cheese”…and it became the Franco-American brand’s flagship product.
Dear Cool Daddy: Which came first, the chicken or the egg?
The egg... just think of it as a baby chicken. It will grow up to be an adult chicken, but as an egg, it's a chicken already. You can't have a grown chicken without first having a baby chicken, or a chicken egg. But you can have a chicken egg without having a mama and papa chicken who made it, which is the whole idea behind the biological process of mutation.
To take a real-life example, it is believed snakes evolved from lizards. The gene for the legless mutation occurred during the creation of 2 lizard gametes, the ovum from the mother and spermatozoa from the father, that united to result in a legless offspring....which, if it could survive, would propagate a new species...snakes. So in this case, you would have had a baby snake without it having adult snakes as its parents. But an adult snake can only grow from a baby snake, not from a baby lizard. Which is just another way of saying, the first thing that was a snake was a baby snake, not an adult snake. And for snakes...and chickens too...that means the egg came first.
Dear Cool Daddy: A war (ha ha) was broken out at our house over which actors from the movie version of "M*A*S*H" recreated their roles on the TV show. We agree on Gary Burghoff as Radar, but my husband thinks there was one more, but he can't think of who. Care to referee?
Little old peacemaker me. Your husband is correct...there was one other...that was actor G. Wood who played General Hammond in the movie, then in the first couple of episodes of the series, and never again. "G." was his professional name...he was either George or Gene, depending on who's telling it. But interestingly, there were 3 other actors who appeared in both versions of M*A*S*H, altho as different characters.
Corey Fischer was Capt. Baldini in the movie, then the guitar-strumming dentist Capt. Phil Cardozo in the 2nd season episode "Five O'Clock Charlie." Timothy Brown was Cpl. Judson in the movie, and Capt. Spearchucker Jones in 6 TV episodes, taking over the role from Fred Williamson. And finally, John Fujioka appeared briefly, and uncredited, as a Japanese golfer in the movie, and in 3 different guest roles on TV.
The thing is, when M*A*S*H made the transition from large screen to small, there was at the start some indecision as to which characters would be carried over. Obviously, the lead surgeons were cut from 3 to 2, with Capt. Augustus Bedford "Duke" Forrest (Tom Skerritt in the movie) the odd man out. Hawkeye, Trapper, Radar, Col. Blake, Hotlips, Frank Burns, and Father Mulcahey, no longer nicknamed "Dago Red," were retained...and of course, Spearchucker was tried but dropped.
Aussie "gas-passer" Ugly John Black (Carl Gottlieb in the movie, John Orchard on TV) appeared in 10 episodes, sometimes as sort of a surrogate "3rd surgeon" if the plot called for it. Swamp houseboy Ho-Jon (Kim Atwood/Patrick Adiarte) was on 7 TV shows, the naive Pvt. Boone (Bud Cort/Bruno Kirby, then Robert Gooden) on 3, and Lt. Dish (Jo Ann Pflug/Karen Philipp) on 2. Also absent from the TV version was the suicidal dentist Walt Waldowski, the Painless Pole...altho he's supposedly mentioned a couple of times...I don't remember that, but listen closely next time you're watching!
And the next time you've got the movie on, watch for Ed O'Neill from "Married With Children," who's said to have an uncredited cameo as an MP. Till next time, weekly blog at stolf.wordpress.com, Genealogy for Baby Boomers at deepfriedhhoodsiecups.wordpress.com...and if you have any time left from cleaning the pool, rock on!
