This Day in History; The Dumber Mummers

On January 1, 1876, in honor of the American centennial, the first area-wide New Year's Day Mummers' Parade was held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Now your first reaction, if you're like me, was to wonder aloud; "What the hell is a mummer?" Turns out it's one of three things, in descending order of decency; 1. A masked or costumed merrymaker 2. One who acts or plays in a pantomime. (That's right, a god-*%# mime) 3. An actor (feel free to shudder at this point).

According to the History Channel website, "Mummers' celebrations in America date back to colonial times, when the boisterous Swedish custom of celebrating the end of the calendar year with noise making and shouting was combined with the tradition of the British mummery play. Reciting doggerel and receiving in return cakes and ale, groups of five to 20 people, their faces blackened, would march from home to home, shouting and discharging firearms into the air while burlesquing the English Mummers' play of St. George and the Dragon." Talk about your gay parades before their time.

So essentially it was a combination of Halloween and New Year's Eve, or a typical rednecks family reunion. Of course, rednecks would be shouting lines from Married With Children.

Philadelphia, which had a sizable Swedish population, was said to be the center of America's Mummers' celebrations. I guess this would explain the Phillies. You can't see many more costumed merrymakers doing a pantomime than at a baseball game.

Now that you've read about "Reciting doggerel and receiving in return cakes and ale, groups of five to 20 people, their faces blackened, would march from home to home, shouting and discharging firearms into the air while burlesquing the English Mummers' play of St. George and the Dragon" you no doubt recognize the forerunner to the Academy Awards, Cannes Film Festival, the Emmys, and other daily award shows that actors feel inclined to subject us to. It doesn't seem fair that Mummers get to fire off their guns without giving us a chance to shoot back.

Mummer parades weren't the only acting related events to have happened on January 1. On January 1st 0404 - The last gladiator competition was held in Rome. It would be fourteen hundred years before that kind of exciting sporting event was seen again; in 1840 - The first recorded bowling match was played in the United States. After watching it, Rip Van Winkle fell asleep for twenty years, a tradition that continues today.

In 1966 - The final episode of "The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet" (with Rick Nelson) was filmed, though admittedly this doesn't have much to do with acting.

Speaking of dressing up in funny costumes and making a lot of noise, You can't find a bigger collection of costumed actors than in politics (oh that they were all mimes!) Or religion. In 1622 the Papal Chancery adopted January 1st as the beginning of the New Year (instead of March 25th). I think we can file this in the Getting With the Program category.

1930 - "The Cuckoo Hour" was heard for the first time on the NBC-Blue Network. It is known today as the Fox News Channel.(I was going to say MSNBC but nobody's ever heard of it).

Also of note on January 1; 1959 - Fidel Castro overthrew the government of Fulgencio Batista, and seized power in Cuba. 1804 - Haiti gained its independence. 1956 - Sudan gained its independence. 1981 - Greece joined the European Community.

Moral? If you want to start a country you might want to pick another day to do it.