Weekend Open Thread

… two different incarnations of a popular comic strip character debuted on the same date? On March 12, 1951, American newspaper readers were first introduced to Dennis the Menace, created and drawn by Hank Ketcham (1920-2001). The strip, about a precocious kid and his tortured neighbor Mr. Wilson, continues today. It was based on the antics of Ketcham’s actual son Dennis (born 1946), who grew up estranged from his father and who dislikes the fact that the strip was named after him. But on the same day Ketcham’s strip began, British newspapers carried the debut of a completely different comic strip called Dennis the Menace. This strip, created by David Law (1908-1971), also features a terrorizing little kid named Dennis, but no Mr. Wilson. The two characters are not too alike, though; the American Dennis is a well-meaning kid who gets into mischief, while the British version is a bit on the mean side. Both strips are still being drawn, though the U.K. version is now called Dennis and Gnasher. And the most astonishing thing about the coincidence is … neither Ketcham nor Law knew about the other’s strip at the time. There was never any connection between the two. Additional trivia note: Both strips became television series in their respective countries. From 1999 to 2001, an animated British version aired, while a live-action series in the U.S. aired from 1959 to 1963 and starred Jay North (born 1951) as the titular troublemaker. (I always felt bad for “Good ol’ Mr. Wilson” whenever Dennis went over there.)

… during his 17-year career with the New York Yankees, baseball superstar Lou Gehrig (1903-1941) earned a total of $361,500? By contrast, the Major League minimum salary in 2023 was $720,000 for the one season. To give you an idea of what kind of money we’re talking about, consider: in 1992, a Yankee fan paid $363,000 for one of the jerseys that Gehrig wore during the 1927 season. That’s more than Gehrig earned his entire career … for one of his shirts. … the average American family spends about $935 on gifts for family and friends at Christmas? (Which, by the way, is just around the corner …) … one of the worst jobs in history had to be at an 18th Century English gambling den? At a time when gambling as such was illegal, places where people gathered to wager money on the roll of dice employed one special person who they paid well, but hoped to never use. His job? He had to swallow all the dice in the place if the police conducted a raid. (The person doing the job also hoped he’d never have to actually earn his keep.) … what goes around really does come around? In 1999, a youngster named Kevin Stephan (born 1989) was acting as bat boy for his brother’s baseball team when he was hit in the chest with a bat by another boy who was warming up. Kevin’s heart stopped beating, but his life was saved by the mother of another boy on the team – a nurse named Penny Brown (born 1973). Seven years later, Brown was having dinner in a restaurant when she began to choke on her food, and who came from the kitchen to give her the Heimlich maneuver and save her life? Kevin Stephan, by then a volunteer firefighter. (They both should get a medal.) … it was once believed tomatoes had magic powers? In the 16th Century, people in Europe actually believed that eating a tomato would turn a person into a werewolf. (What, you mean it doesn’t? Darn. It would have been fun.)… Read more »