This Day in Pop Culture for October 25

1993: Everyone’s Favorite Villain Dies

With Vincent Price’s history of acting in many horror movies, it is only fitting that the man would pass away so close to Halloween in 1993 at the age of 82. But there were many different sides to this creative man.

Vincent Leonard Price Jr. was born in St. Louis, Missouri on May 27, 1911, to Vincent Leonard Price, the president of the National Candy Company. He graduated college with a degree in English, a minor degree in art history and a desire to get a master’s degree in fine arts. However, he wound up on the theatre stage followed by movies and TV.

Vincent has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame – one for movies and the other for TV. He appeared with Boris Karloff in the movie Tower of London. It was his first horror film role, the genre that he is best known for.

Some say Price’s best horror film was 1953’s House of Wax while others say it was 1963’s The Raven. However, Price has starred in many other genres of movies including Laura, The Three Musketeers, The Ten Commandments and The Whales of August. His last movie role was The Inventor in Edward Scissorhands.

Price appeared in many TV shows from Here’s Lucy to The Brady Bunch. Batman fans know him as Egghead.

Price had an unmistakable voice and used it for a variety of roles including Vincent Van Ghoul (from The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo), King Herod (from The Greatest Adventure: Stories from the Bible), January Q. Irontail (from Here Comes Peter Cottontail) and Michael Jackson’s Thriller music video.

Price voiced the under-appreciated role of Professor Ratigan for Disney’s The Great Mouse Detective. He also lent his voice as the narrator for Tim Burton’s Vincent and served as the voice of the Phantom for Disneyland Paris’ Phantom Manor attraction (similar to the Haunted Mansion rides).

Other facts about Vincent: He was an avid fan of roller coasters; he was a gourmet cook (and authored several cookbooks with his wife) and was collector of fine art. (Image: Wikimedia)

1955: The First Home Microwave Oven

Microwave technology was created in the 1940s and was used exclusively by the U.S. Military. And not for cooking. Years later, W.R. Tappan held a press conference at the Hotel Pierre in New York to show off his company’s first microwave oven.

The first microwave ovens were powered by a magnetron which, according to Richland County History, converted electric currents to those like high-frequency TV signals. Each unit had to be licensed by the FCC and the sales brochures promised would-be owners that their new ovens would “not interfere with either radio or television reception.”

Interest in the product was huge, but only 34 units were made in 1955. The retail price for it was $1,295!

1971: ‘The Electric Company’ Lights Up

After the success of the preschool show, Sesame Street, the Children’s Television Workshop went to work on new show for PBS aimed at grade school kids using the goofy name, The Electric Company.

Co-created by Paul Dooley, Joan Ganz Cooney, and Lloyd Morrisett, the new show also featured an ensemble cast but they were used differently for the new show using sketch comedy, musical numbers and special guests. It even showed cartoons featuring Warner Bros. Coyote and Roadrunner (created solely for the new show) and a few Spidey Super Stories which featured a live action but mute Spider-Man. (Kids had to read his thought bubbles.) The cast included Morgan Freeman (who often played Easy Reader), Rita Moreno and Bill Cosby.

Although fairly popular, The Electric Company only had six seasons. However, the show continued to show reruns through 1985. Two seasons of reboot of the series was made in 2009 and continued with reruns through 2014. (Image TVDB)