APRIL 28, 2004: IT WAS SHEAR PLEASURE

Some folks will go to great lengths to avoid sitting in a barber’s chair. So it seems will some animals. A New Zealand Merino sheep named Shrek — not to be confused with the bald green guy of the same name — really didn’t want to be shorn. So he went on the lam in the late 90’s, living as a fugitive, hiding in caves, always looking back over his shoulder.  He avoided capture for six years but alas someone finally fingered him and he was apprehended in April 2004. And on April 28, the now incredibly woolly Shrek went under the shears. It took a mere 20 minutes to denude him, and the entire indignity was nationally televised. The suddenly svelte Shrek gave up 60 pounds of wool, enough to suit 20 New Zealanders.

Now famous, he took tea with the Prime Minister on his tenth birthday and was allowed to spurn the shears for another 30 months before being shorn on an iceberg off the New Zealand coast (certainly a jumping the shark event). Shrek bought the sheep farm in 2011.

This Was No Toy

The world’s first car race took place on April 28, 1887.  It was organized by the editor-in-chief of the Parisian magazine Le Vélocipè. The winner of the race was Georges Bouton, an engineer and toymaker driving an 1884 La Marquise, a steam-powered automobile he had constructed with his partner Albert, the Count of Dion.  The race from Paris to Versailles wasn’t particularly exciting; Bouton’s La Marquise was the only car taking part.

Named for the Count’s mother, La Marquise is a four-seater powered by twin steam engines.  A 40-gallon steel tank underneath the passengers gives the car a range of 20 miles with speeds up to 38 mph.  Once it gets going , that is.  Fueled by coal, wood and bits of paper, it takes 40 minutes  to create enough steam to move.  The car was still running when it was sold in 2011 for a record $4.6 million, making it the world’s longest running automobile.

Sardine in Honorable Tin Can

Following the death of Warner Oland, who had successfully brought the character of Charlie Chan to the screen in 16 films, Twentieth Century Fox began the search for a new Chan. Sidney Toler, who was born in Warrensburg, Missouri, on April 28, 1874, was chosen to play the detective, and filming began less then a week later on Charlie Chan in Honolulu. Through four years and eleven films, Toler played Charlie Chan for Twentieth Century Fox. Fox terminated the series in 1942, following the completion of Castle in the Desert. Sidney Toler went on to star in eleven more Charlie Chan films for Monogram Pictures. Very ill during the filming of his last two Chan pictures in 1946, Toler died in 1947.

The character of Charlie Chan was created for the novel The House Without a Key in 1925 by Earl Derr Biggers. Biggers loosely based Chan on a real-life Honolulu detective named Chang Apana. He conceived of the heroic Chan as an alternative to the many stereotypical villains such as Fu Manchu that typified the so-called Yellow Peril, a prevailing vision of the menace of Asia. Sounding like a turn-of-the-century Donald Trump, Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune intoned: “The Chinese are uncivilized, unclean, and filthy beyond all conception without any of the higher domestic or social relations; lustful and sensual in their dispositions; every female is a prostitute of the basest order.”

Over four dozen films featuring Charlie Chan were made, beginning in 1926. Movie-goers took to Chan, but in later years critics found that in spite of his good qualities he too was an Asian stereotype. Many also objected to the fact that he was played by Caucasian actors in  (although Keye Luke who played Chan’s number one son in 7 films was a Chinese-American actor).

In addition to his great detection, Charlie Chan was noted for the aphorisms sprinkled liberally throughout the films. A handful of the very many: Action speak louder than French, Bad alibi like dead fish – cannot stand test of time Detective without curiosity is like glass eye at keyhole, Dead as sardine in honorable tin can.