1946 Academy Awards

Today in 1946 they handed out the Oscars for the best in motion pictures for 1945. Billy Wilder's "The Lost Weekend" took home the most trophies with Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor for Ray Milland and Best Screenplay.
"The Lost Weekend" beat some formidable competition with "Anchors Aweigh", "The Bells of St. Mary's", "Mildred Pierce" and "Spellbound".

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2005 Academy Awards

March 5th 2006 The Academy Awards (the Oscars) for 2005 were handed out at the Kodak Theater in Hollywood.
The favorite for Best Picture was "Brokeback Mountain" with 8 nominations, but was upset by "Crash" starring Sandra Bullock, Don Cheadle, Matt Dillon, Jennifer Esposito, William Fichtner, Brendan Fraser, Terrence Dashon Howard, Chris "Ludacris" Bridges, Thandie Newton, Ryan Phillippe.
Ang Lee took home the Oscar for Best Director for "Brokeback Mountain".
Also nominated in 2005 for Best Picture were "Capote", "Good Night, and Good Luck" and "Munich".

Classic Cartoon

Here is a great Warner Brothers cartoon from 1959 ,"The Mouse that Jack Built", that is a parody of the legendary Jack Benny Show with all the mice being the cast from that show. The voices were provided by the cast themselves, Jack, Mary, Don wilson, Rochester and of course Mel Blanc as the Maxwell. You get to see some of the running gags from radio and tv like the Vault, which was for Jack's money but here its for his cheese, and its immortal guard Ed.
Jack and his violin, how cheap is Jack? and of course the famous take that Jack gives the audience.

Today in Oscar History

Today in 1944 the Academy Awards for 1943 were handed out at the 16th Annual ceremony at Grauman's Chinese Theater in Hollywood. The great Jack Benny hosted the evenings ceremonies and saw Casablanca take home the Oscar for Best Picture and Best Director for Michael Curtiz.

OSCAR SPOILERS, PART 4: Show Opener

OSCAR SPOILERS, PART 4: Show Opener

New Motorsports Hall of Fame inductees

Today the Motorsports Hall of Fame in Detroit MI announced 7 inductees for its Class of 2010.

See the full rundown at their website

Inductees this year include 1992 Winston Cup Champion Alan Kulwicki who gave us the "Polish victory lap" while driving the "Underbird" to the last owner/driver championship in Nascar.
Ken Squier, the voice of Nascar and the man that coined the phrase "The Great American Race" for the Daytona 500 and Rich Vogler, sprint car champion from Indiana.

Here is a full list of all of the Hall of Fame members

Goodbye, Farewell & Amen

Today in 1983 CBS aired the finale to one of the best shows ever on television, M*A*S*H.
The final episode was a 2 1/2 hour "movie" of the final days of the Korean War for the members of the 4077th MASH, Hawkeye, BJ, Col Potter, Maj Margaret Houlihan, Cpl Klinger, Maj Charles Emerson Winchester III, Father Mulcahey and all the others that made this one of the best shows ever.
First airing in 1972 and barely surviving its low ratings (thanks to a more patient CBS) it developed some of the most memorable characters, episodes and dialogue on tv.
The tv show followed the popular film of the same name but only one actor stayed with the show from the movie, Gary Burghoff as Cpl Walter "Radar" O'Reilly.
Thanks to syndication and airing on TVLand and Hallmark channel as well as the complete series on DVD new generations can discover what great tv is like.
My daughters have watched with me since they were old enough to understand what they were watching and they enjoy it just as much as I do.