Today marks four years since I began my blog. It is also Cary Grant’s birthday (not a coincidence — he was my favorite actor long before the blog began). And so begins my fifth year of sharing the classic film love! It’s hard to believe I’ve been at this four years already… almost 1,500 days! To celebrate this milestone, let’s take a little walk down memory lane by reminiscing on TMP’s very first year.

TMP’s first day was a busy one. I had been publishing brief reviews on my Tumblr page for a couple of months and spent much of January 18, 2012 migrating those reviews to WordPress. The first review I published was a two-paragraph, lukewarm take on 1940’s The Villain Still Pursued Her. That day also saw a review of Third Finger, Left Hand, a 108th birthday tribute to Cary Grant, and Part I of a list of anticipated films to be released that year, among other posts (11 total, all very short).

Some fun facts about TMP’s features:

  • The TMP Index was created in March of 2012 and has been updated once a week, every week since its publication!
  • Several of the blog’s recurring features began in 2012:
    • The “Book vs. Film” series and the “Reviewin’ the Box” DVD reviews began in March.
    • The “Recap and React” classic television series began in June.
    • “Mill Creek Musings” began in July with the 50 Classic Musicals set.
    • “Favorite things about…” began in September.
    • I began sharing excerpts from my vintage magazine collection under the “Historical Context” label in October.
    • “Could it be a movie?”, TMP’s evaluation of books as potential source material, began in December.
  • Also in 2012, I completed the “Through the Library, Alphabetically” series, in which I chose one film from each letter of the alphabet from my local public library for review.

February 2012 remains my highest-ranking month in terms of number of posts, with 43 published! The first year of the blog was clearly a very productive one, and that pattern has continued through 2015 and in this first month of 2016. I feel pretty accomplished, having blogged almost daily for four years. I’ve only taken time off from the blog on a couple of occasions, once due to a camping trip with limited internet access and once due to a family emergency. Since I’m now beginning my fifth year, my goal for 2016 is not to miss a single day!

Happy birthday to TMP!

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(Image via Stripes)