1According to Wikipedia: “The Castellammarese War was a bloody struggle for control of the Italian-American Mafia, from February 19, 1930, to April 15, 1931, between partisans of Joe ‘The Boss’ Masseria and those of Salvatore Maranzono. It was so called because Maranzono was based in Castellammare del Golfo, Sicily.”
2Not surprisingly, JFK’s assassination put a quick end to Vaughn Meader’s career. The album, which was considered a good-natured parody upon its release, was now considered to be in highly questionable taste. All unsold copies were pulled from store shelves and destroyed. Meader, who overnight had become a show-business non-entity, returned to his hometown in Maine, where he performed music and managed a pub. Not much was heard of him—or his notorious album— until it was re-released on CD in 1999. Vaughn Meader died on October 29, 2004, at the age of sixty-eight.
3Unfortunately, Hamer drifted out of show business after one last try as Rusty on Danny Thomas’s hopelessly dated retooling of his earlier sitcom, Make Room for Granddaddy in 1970. This was officially the former child star’s last job in show business. By his early forties, he was living in a trailer in Louisiana, eking out a precarious existence by delivering newspapers. A victim of untreated depression, he was also in chronic pain due to his back. Finally, on January 18, 1990, forty-two-year-old Rusty Hamer put a .357 Magnum to his head and brought an end to his tragic life.
6A joke that has been done many times by most comedians.
7The former theater is currently the home of The Pickford Center for Motion Picture Study.
8He was later replaced by the affable Larry Storch, who had played Corporal Randolph Agarn on ABC’s F Troop.
9As though to justify her trepidation, Dean’s popular seasonal song, “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” a holiday standard by Frank Loesser, has been banned by certain radio stations due to its seeming wink at date rape.
