Statue of Liberty National Monument national monument in 1924. In 1937, by proclamation 2250, President Franklin D. Roosevelt expanded the monument to include all of Bedloe's Island, and in 1956, an act of Congress officially renamed it Liberty Island. Ellis Island was made part of the Statue of Liberty National Monument by proclamation of President Lyndon Johnson in 1965. The United States historic district, a single listing on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places, was designated in 1966. The islands were closed during Hurricane Sandy in October 2012 and suffered severe damage. Liberty Island reopened July 4, 2013; Ellis Island re-opened October 24, 2013.
What It Was, Was Football from the "Totally MAD" CD-ROM collection of the magazine's run. In 1987, Andy Griffith made an appearance on "The Tonight Show" promoting his series, "Matlock," in which he acted out the attorney Benjamin Layton Matlock, one of whose heroes was, presumably, Erle Stanley Gardner's Perry Mason. During the interview, guest host Bill Cosby told Griffith that he had purchased Griffith's recording of "What It Was, Was Football." Cosby then told Griffith that he had performed it at school and received an A for his grade, much to Griffith's surprise and delight. In 1997, the monologue was made into a short