Coffee With Jeff

The Jersey Devil was a local legend in the Pine Barrens area of New Jersey for over 250 years but during a week in January of 1909 dozens, some say 100s, of sightings cause it to be a national sensation. They say it is a kangaroo-like creature with the head of a goat, leathery bat-like wings, horns, small arms with clawed hands, cloven hooves and a forked tail. And it makes a “blood-curdling scream”. Was it Mother Leeds’s thirteenth child and what did Benjamin Franklin have to do with it?

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During the American Civil War, actress Pauline Cushman stopped in the middle of a performance and said to the audience, “Here’s to Jeff Davis and the Southern Confederacy, May the South always maintain her honor and her rights.”

She was immediately fired from the theater company and quickly became a celebrity with the Southerners. She started a new career; a spy for the Union Army during the bloodiest war that the United States had ever been involved in! This is her story.

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In the 1970s, nuclear power plants were popping up everywhere in the U.S.A. So quickly, in fact, that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission didn’t have the resources to keep up. One of these plants was Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania. On the night of March 28, 1979, lights and alarms began going off like it was The Forth of July in the reactor control room. Something was wrong, and for the next few days, the world waited to see if southern Pennsylvania was going to be a nuclear wasteland!

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On March 28, 1933, a plane called “City of Liverpool” crashed killing all aboard. There is some question, even today, on whether this was just a horrible accident, caused by a careless smoker, or if it was a deliberate act of sabotage by a dentist named Dr. Albert Voss. Today is both, the story of the tragedy and my search to find out what happened.

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In the second episode of Celluloid of the strange & Unusual, I bring you my thoughts on three more films, Life of an American Fireman (1906), Harold and Maude (1971) and Daisies (1966). All three of these films a really love and thing are important.

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There is an area in the southwestern part of the borough of Brooklyn in New York City known as Coney Island. At its height, along with many independent amusements parks, Coney Island had three major parks, all competing with each other; Luna Park, Steeplechase Park, and Dreamland.

Dreamland, the subject of today’s show, was built in 1904 and designed to be bigger and better, with elegance far beyond the noise and chaos of Luna Park. It would be gone seven years later

Completely gone.

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In the late 19th century a new industry began, filmmaking. In the beginning, it was open to anyone, man or women, who wanted to try. That would change once big money got involved, and some would be pushed aside and forgotten about.

Are you ready to hear that story of a remarkable woman named Alice Guy Blaché who helped create the art of film and how Hollywood and history left her behind? Today we have her story.

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There was a car that you probably never heard of, a car that was all set to revolution the auto industry that never made it into production. It was going to be a lightweight, fuel-efficient and inexpensive car, weighing in at 1,000 pounds, would sell for less than $2,000 and would get an amazing 70 miles per gallon. This car that was set to transform the auto industry was called The Dale.

A slick, six-page, fill-color brochure showed the futuristic, banana-yellow Dale in all its glory. The cover of the brochure read, “The new 70 mpg Dale. Dollar for dollar, the best car ever built! Inside were even more remarkable claims, “ The most exciting new car of this century” “The first Space Age automobile” “Design and built like it’s ready to be driven to the moon.”

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In 1976, a made for television mini-series called Sybil premiered on NBC. It was based on a book of the same name; a non-fiction account written by Flora Rheta Schreiber about psychoanalyst Cornelia B. Wilbur and her treatment of a woman named Sybil Dorsett, who was reported to have 16 distinct personalities. Sybil, it turned out, was Shirley Ardell Mason.

Both the book and the film were a great success with its shocking and disturbing true story and yet, there have been many who have questioned the book and the story of Sybil and her 15 other selves.

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On the first show of the year, I look at three films that you may mot have seen. The Mystery of the Leaping Fish (1916), The Holy Mountain (1973), and Spider Baby (1968).

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