Who said, "A handshake agreement isn't worth the paper it's printed on" ?

We never know how much of what to buy for Halloween.  There are no young children on our block, but the surrounding streets are full of families with kiddies.  There was a time we had a steady stream of trick-or-treaters, so much so that we used to get a pizza and sit in the bed of my old pickup in the driveway, chomping pizza and guzzling National Boh and handing out Snickers, Milky Ways and I don't know what-all else to kids dressed like Pee Wee Herman or Edward Scissorhands.

And then, we would have plenty of candy for November and December.

Now, neither of us really wants 147 Three Musketeers bars around. So, we give out wee bags of Pretzels or Goldfish crackers, and this year, we have a few left over.  So, of course, with Goldfish on my mind, I started thinking about the MGM movie studio.

MGM - Metro Goldwyn Mayer Studios - was formed by merging
Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer Pictures.  Goldwyn Pictures was the corporation in the early early days of Hollywood owned by two brothers named Selwyn, and a man named Samuel Goldfish.  For real! Goldfish, a Hasidic Polish Jewish immigrant, was born Szmuel Gelbfisz, which he translated to Samuel Goldfish for business purposes. Later, he changed his name to Goldwyn when he teamed with the Selwyns.  Interesting man, and one of the original movieland moguls.  I can only imagine that if Goldfish crackers had been around by the time he left MGM to Mayer and made his own movies and big money, theaters would never have sold popcorn.

Samuel Goldwyn
1879 - 1974

Goldwyn is often recalled these days when the talk turns to malapropisms (the use of a funny word, often unintentionally) and wry twists of phrases.   For example, he said, "I don't think anybody should write his autobiography until after he's dead."  And, "In two words: im-possible," and the motto of bosses everywhere: 

"I’m willing to admit that I may not always be right, but I am never wrong."

I don't go to movies anymore, except for movies with Johnny Knoxville in them, but when we do get there to see "Bad Grandpa,"  I will have my teeny bags of Goldfish crackers in my pocket!