10 Things to Know for Today and This Week: Children's Day in Turkey

Here are 10 Things To Know for April 23rd, 2015:

1) Today is National Children's Day in Turkey (top image from Kusadasi, Turkey)

2) Today is William Shakespeare's 451th birthday (center image)

3) Arda Turan (Turkey, pict. bottom) got a red card for Atletico Madrid late in yesterday's Champions League game versus Real Madrid.

4) Bayern Munich (Germany),  Juventus (Italy), Barcelona and Real Madrid (Spain) advanced to the semi-finals in Champions League play.

5) Freddie Gray's death after an arrest by the Baltimore Police Department has sparked city-wide protests in Baltimore, Maryland.

6) Michael Moore, America's leading liberal documentary filmmaker, turns 61 today.

7) Popeye is called Temel Reis in Turkey.

8) The original pilot episode for "Mister Ed," an American tv comedy about a talking horse, cost a mere $70,000 to produce in 1961.

9) Odense is the third largest city in Denmark.

10) Claudio Bisogneiro is the Italian ambassador to the United States.

Our Favorite Comic Strips from the Sunday, Feb. 1st "Washington Post:" Love WuMo's Pink Panther Strip

Greetings to our blog readers in Israel, Taiwan and Turkey..........

Welcome to another edition of "The Daily Vampire".......oh #$%&, that's our other blog!

We go back to Feb. 1st for our Sunday comic strips survey of comics in the Sunday "Washington Post," for this week's survey go to "The Daily Vampire:" http://www.nocturnalguy38.blogspot.com

For last week's comics, we really, really liked "Brewster Rockit: Space Guy," which featured a great gag about the title hero going back in time to fix up his mistake of not putting enough milk into his Captain Crunch cereal (pict. top).

"The Argyle Sweater" got third place for its look at non-endorsements by various cartoon characters, including skinny jeans by Fat Albert (voiced by Bill Cosby, we've been hearing his name a lot lately) and large bra by Olive Oyl, Popeye's love interest (pict. center).

The always hilarious Danish import "WuMo" came in fifth with a strip about the Pink Panther (pict. bottom)  taking it easy in the jungles of Tanzania as his fellow felines look on in wonder.

"Baldo," a Hispanic-centered comic strip which also appears in the "Miami Herald" features Baldo's dad listening in on what his son is listening to as he is doing homework. His dad makes a rude discovery (Bruno Mars, perhaps?!)......the strip came in eighth.

We also loved "Foxtrot," which finished fourth, as a father learns that when he son hears the word football, he thinks futbol, as in the type played by Lionel Messi and Wayne Rooney as opposed to the type played by Peyton Manning, on Super Bowl Sunday, no less....

Here is our  top ten:

1) Brewster Rockit: Space Guy

2) Lio

3) The Argyle Sweater

4) Foxtrot

5) WuMo

6) Speed Bump

7) Pearls Before Swine

8) Baldo

 9) Reply All

10) Sherman's Lagoon

http://www.miamiherald.com

http://www.baldocomics.com

http://www.shermanslagoon.com

5) WUMO

Happy Valentine's Day from Olive Oyl

Yes, today is Valentine's Day, and we are having lots of fun here at the Salt Lake City Library in Salt Lake City, Utah (not actually where we are at!).

Olive Oyl is of course the sweetheart of Popeye, who always has to fight his rival Bluto to win her heart. In the real world, this would assuredly lead to a court date.

Today, in honor of the occasion the Sundance Channel is airing the quirky Irish film "Happy Ever After" (2009) about two former lovers who somehow end up at the exact same hotel for their respective wedding days. Awkward!

The film airs at 8:00 p.m., New York time.

SIDEBAR: The answer to our last Rabbits Ears Quiz on "Gilligan's Island" is D.