Now I've Heard Everything

This is an episode of Now I've Heard Everything that made me think very carefully about.  Given the tensions the entire nation -- the world -- is enduring right now, I did not want to further inflame things.

But ultimately, I think this interview, from 1992, with former Sgt. Stacey Koon, may provide some relevance and context.

Let's go back to March 1991.  An LA cop makes a late-night traffic stop, pulling over a car driven by a man named Rodney King.

Hairspray. Cry-Baby. Serial Mom. Pink Flamingos.

Filmmaker John Waters has a long, illustrious, and unique body of work. 

He started making movies in the early 1960s, but only rose to prominence in the '70s, and by the '80s was a cultural icon.

I first met him in the fall of 1986.  He had just published a by collection of his writings, a slender little book called "Crackpot."

Reba McEntire recorded her first song in 1976, when she was just 21.

Her first number one record didn't come for another decade, but she's been on a roll ever since, and today is a country music icon.

In 1994, Reba wrote an autobiography, and that;s when I met her.

And yes, it was another one of those times that I was pretty starstruck. But she immediately put me at ease.

In 1979 major league baseball umpires went on strike.  MLB hired substitutes -- scabs, as m,any call them -- and veteran minor league umpire Dave Pallone was offered a big-league job.

He remained in the National League for ten years.

But as he told in his 1990 book "Behind the Mask," his fellow umpires disliked him.  And he developed a reputation for being quick-tempered.

In April 1988, Pallone had a very high-profile confrontation with someone else who had a reputation for his temper: Cincinnati Reds manager Pete Rose.  During an argument over a controversial call, Rose shoved Pallone -- a very serious offense in baseball -- and was suspended for 30 days.

When I was a kid, all my friends and I were into The Twilight Zone, the Rod Serling TV series.

But in the later 2000s, another "twilight" captured the world's imagination:  the "Twilight" series of novels by Stephenie Meyer.  

Four, in all, chronicling the stories of teenager Bella, vampire Edward. and werewolf Jacob.

This was actually one of the most popular interviews I posted last year on Now I've Heard Everything -- and since tomorrow, May 30th, would have been his 112th birthday, I wanted to re-share my 1988 interview with the unmatched master of voice acting, Mel Blanc.

Bugs Bunny. Daffy Duck. Elmer Fudd, Sylvester and Twety, Porky Pig, Barney Rubble.  Heck, he was even the voice of Jack Benny's car.

Canadian-born comedian Samantha Bee was a fixture on TV's The Daily Show or twelvve years. Indeed, she was Most Senor Correspondent. 

I met her tewn years ago next week, at the height of her popularity on that show, when she wrote a breezy memoir, a hilariously guided tour of her childhood and adolescence.

On this Memorial Day 2020, a very moving story of a father and son caught up in an unpopular war, with an unexpected and poignant outcome.

In the 1960s, U.S. forces in Vietnam used the defoliant known as Agent Orange in an effort to make it harder for enemy forces to hide in thr jungle.  

Agent Orange was very effective -- but it also proved very deadly for hundreds of U.S. troops who were exposed to it.

In the late '60s the Commander of Naval Forces in Vietnam was Admiral Elmo Zumwalt Jr. 

His son, Elmo Zumwalt III, was in the Navy -- and was among those  exposed to the Agent Orange his father ordered.

If you're of a certain age, you probably have fond memories of Nickelodeon's popular '80s and '90s shows "Double Dare" and "What Would You Do?" hosted by Marc Summers.

Every episode invariably featured lots of slime, goo, cream pies, a vat of beans, whatever. Kids loved it.

But Marc Summers was silently suffering.  

As he told me in our 1999 interview, he has OCD -- Obsessive Compulsive Disorder -- which makes him super uncomfortable when things get messy or dirty -- or slimy.

Few people have had the kind of impact on a professional sport that Wilt Chamberlain had on the game of basketball.

In a career that started with the Harlem Globetrotters, the 7-foot-1 Chamberlain became a superstar and a record-setter.

To this day, no one has broken the record he's best known for: scoring 100 points in a single game.