Anders Holm’s commencement address got us thinking about other notable comedians’ campus visits. In 1969, Bill Cosby headlined a stand-up show at the Field House to kick off that year’s Homecoming weekend. Backstage, Cosby hobnobbed with the reigning Homecoming Queen - and a gaggle of starstruck students.
Bill Cosby gets acquainted with the 1969 Homecoming Queen and friends.
In October 1985, Rodney Dangerfield arrived on campus to shoot Back to School, a process that entailed transforming UW-Madison into Grand Lakes University. The film features several scenes on Library Mall, Memorial Union Terrace, and Bascom Hill. (Fortunately for actual students, Bascom Hall is not a dorm, as the movie portrays it.) Although Dangerfield reportedly kept to himself, he did convey his admiration for the University and knew the tune to “On Wisconsin.”
Dangerfield poses in front of the Lincoln statue, sporting a sweatshirt with the mascot of the fictional Grand Lakes University: the Hooter. We’ll stick with Bucky Badger.
Bascom Hill proves none too strenuous a climb for a slipper-clad and bathrobe-wearing Dangerfield.
The Madison campus is not just a host to comedic guests, but a breeding ground for homegrown talent. Dangerfield would have just missed passing comic actress Joan Cusack while strolling Bascom Hill in Fall 1985. Cusack graduated in 1985 with a BA in English. Although she had made her silver screen debut long before her freshman year, Cusack honed her acting skills on stage as a member of the Ark Improvisational Repertory Theatre.
Cusack’s accomplishments featured in a 1989 Alumni bulletin.
Ben Karlin (Class of 1993) also boasts a comic career that built from his college classes and experiences. The Onion and Badger editor channeled his writing chops into a successful tenure as lead writer and producer for The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. In his 2006 Winter Commencement speech, Karlin offered the following words of wisdom to Wisconsin graduates:
You may not be able to become a billionaire by age 30, but you certainly can collect coins. Or, if you lack even the motivation for that, what about buying a coffee table book about coin collecting? Surely you can do that. My point is, get a coffee table.
The 1993 Badger features a young Karlin already hamming it up in the newsroom.
In short: be charitable to that student in discussion session whose jokes elicit more cringes than chuckles. He or she just might make it some day!
Jill Slaight for UW-Madison Archives
For more information about UW-Madison campus history, contact uwarchiv@library.wisc.edu or visit archive.library.wisc.edu.
Filed under rodney dangerfield bill cosby joan cusack anders holm ben karlin comedy UW-Madison WIHistory campus history university Wisconsin
wiscohisto: Wisconsinites! Share your story…
Do you work in a family-owned business in Wisconsin? How has it changed from your parents’ or grandparents’ generation?
Share your memories and photos of your work life in Wisconsin via Tumblr or on our website and you might get your story featured on Wisconsin Life on WPR!
Photo: C. Liebenow & Son Jewelers, Manitowoc, Wisconsin, 1898, photographed by Hermann Benke. Manitowoc Local History Collection, Manitowoc Public Library by way of University of Wisconsin Digital Collections.
(via whspress)
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todayinhistory:
May 16th 1990: Jim Henson dies
On this day in 1990, the creator of The Muppets Jim Henson died aged 53. Henson’s Muppets featured in Sesame Street and The Muppet Show, with his most famous characters including Kermit the Frog and Elmo. Henson died from organ failure in 1990 in New York City. The Jim Henson Company and the Jim Henson Foundation continued after his death and his characters remain famous and popular.
R.I.P. A true visionary.
(via pbsthisdayinhistory)
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Crown Prince Olav of Norway
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On a mission to the subterranean depths of Steenbock Library, student workers at UW-Madison Archives may sometimes veer from their duties… This proved to be the case one Monday morning when Jen & Jill, charged with reorganizing a series of student scrapbooks, happened upon a dance card among the stacks.
In the early twentieth century, women carried a small booklet such as this around their wrists, penciling in the names of men who proposed to dance with them later in the evening. (Here are other examples from Syracuse and Millikin Universities.) This card’s owner had attended the Military Ball of April 1921. Although she sat out several rounds of the Fox Trot, she joined one Mr. Zamanske twice for the One Step.
Military Ball Dance Card (1921)
Another nearby box housed several more dance cards belonging to Constance Waltz, an undergraduate student at UW-Madison from 1923-1927 and the wife of President and Professor of Biochemistry Conrad Elvehjem. Although the couple married in June 1926, “Connie” was clearly smitten long before; his name appears first on every single dance card pasted in Constance’s scrapbook (which spans the years 1923-1925). (The scrapbook also contains loving flourishes of “Mrs. Conrad Elvehjem.”)
Constance Waltz Scrapbook (c. 1923-1925)
As Constance Elvehjem mentions in her 1983 oral history interview, the couple loved to dance and belonged to two dance clubs while Conrad served as president (1958-1962). After Elvehjem’s untimely death in 1962, the students cancelled their prom and raised money to commission a portrait of him instead.
When getting “carded” did not mean being turned away from Wando’s (Summer Prom, c. 1960)
Unfortunately neither foxtrots nor waltzes were in store for our young archivists, who returned to work - but with a kick in their steps!
* * * * * *
Jen Kirmer & Jill Slaight for UW-Madison Archives
For more information about UW-Madison campus history, contact uwarchiv@library.wisc.edu or visit archive.library.wisc.edu.
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Congrats to Maddie and Sara for making it to Nationals! We are so proud of you. Mr. Witte would be proud, too.
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life:
Happy birthday, Willie Mays.
To celebrate, enjoy these photos of the Say Hey Kid, on and off the diamond.
Pictured: Willie Mays at home, 1954. “Willie is one of those abnormal guys who never lets success and fame go to his head.” — Monte Irvin, teammate.
(Alfred Eisenstaedt—TIME & LIFE Pictures/Getty Images)
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Men’s Crew (shown here in 1929) is the oldest sport at the University of Wisconsin, originating with the intramural rowing team in 1874. Here are some other things you may not know about UW’s crew team.
- The first boat house was completed in 1893, with building supported by the sale of $5 shares.
- Also in 1893, Fred Pabst made a large donation to help secure the University’s first eight-oared paper shell. Pabst, a former Great Lakes steamboat captain, eventually took over ownership of his father-in-law’s brewery, changing the name to the Pabst Brewery.
- An 1899 race became legendary when Wisconsin, which had been leading Penn for 3.5 of the 4 miles of the race course, was forced at the end of the race to swerve off-course to avoid hitting a strawberry crate that had floated into its path. Wisconsin ended up losing the race by about five feet. They lost to Penn in the same race the following year as well and were greeted at the end by the victors, who were wearing strawberry crates on their heads.
- During the summer of 1914, UW’s medical faculty and athletic council banned crew, declaring its four-mile races dangerous to the athletes’ health. Discussion continued in the following years, with a three-mile race proposed as a compromise. After World War I, when all athletics were discontinued, the athletic council lifted the ban in 1921 and crew resumed.
- Wisconsin crew coaches have been both the youngest and oldest in the nation - Ralph Hunn, in 1934, was the youngest, and legendary Harry “Dad” Vail, at age 69, was the oldest in 1928.
- The crew team flew to Annapolis for a race in 1946, representing the first time a Badger athletic team had flown by plane.
For more information about the video or UW-Madison campus history, visit archives.library.wisc.edu.
Video clip from 16 mm film titled “On to Wisconsin” (1929). Posted by Molly Temple for UW Archives.
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