Famous People Who NEVER Existed!

[Polycarp]

@Alan Smithee

I’m still not sure what your point is. If I wrote a book report on A Series of Unfortunate Events or Tom Sawyer and failed to realize that Lemony Snicket or Mark Twain was a pen name, I’d be pretty embarassed as well. Are you suggesting that is what the Founding Fathers were trying to prevent? How considerate of them!

(BTW, if that was the most traumatic event of your childhood, you must be a remarkably well-adjusted adult.)

Well, considering the quality of some of your scripts! …

[Ludovic]

@Ruken

A girl in my highschool once piped up in history class, “Mr. P., have you ever visited Uncle Tom’s cabin?”
::stunned silence::
“Um, no…you do realize that…”
“Because my boyfriend said he went there on a vacation trip with his parents.”
We all cried.

Hey, I’VE been to Uncle Tom’s Cabin! Of course, I have an uncle…called Tom…who has a cabin…

[bup]

@Sternvogel

@Ruken

A girl in my highschool once piped up in history class, “Mr. P., have you ever visited Uncle Tom’s cabin?”
::stunned silence::
“Um, no…you do realize that…”
“Because my boyfriend said he went there on a vacation trip with his parents.”
We all cried.

Perhaps the boyfriend and his family had been to Dresden, Ontario.

I think more likely the boyfriend had been to Rockville/Bethesda, Maryland.

I’ll add Marvin Pontiac.

And of course Captain Tuttle.

[David_Simmons]

@Rysler

As a librarian, I can tell you that getting kids to read anything–dime store westerns and thrillers, serials, Sweet Valley High, comic books, bubblegum wrappers–is the goal. “Corporate deception” is held in such high regard that proper promotion and distribution of these materials is taught to future schoolteachers.

Couldn’t agree more. It’s off topic but when I was growing up there were pulp magazines galore. Doc Savage, The Spider, G8 And His Battle Aces, Flying Aces and on and on. Then there were the Big Little Books and, of course, comic books. I didn’t learn to enjoy reading in school, I got that from the “trash” described above.

[dougie_monty]

The very first thing I remember reading was a 7-Up ad in a Sunday comic section.
Several years ago, I was in a college reading and composition class where we were assigned things to read like “Yellow Wallpaper,” * A Streetcar Named Desire,* and Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison. At the same time, I was continuing to read Archie Comic Digests.
As a junior in high school in the 60s, I was assigned to read literature by Stephen Crane, Herman Wouk, and others–and at the same time I was reading Mad.

[VenusProbe]

@Ethilrist

@Shirley Ujest

John Worphin
John Big Boote ( I don’t know how to do the thingee over the E)
John Ya-Ya
John Small Berries

So, who is it that has said they believe these people exist?

Well, you can email John Bigbooté from the Yoyodyne website.

[dougie_monty]

Someone once wrote something like the following to Mad:
I’ve come to the conclusion that [writers] Larry Siegel and Stan Hart are the same person. In fact, they probably don’t exist, they’re just names you made up to get your garbage published.
Jerry DeFuccio and Al Jaffee replied with, “This is going to come as a shock to Mrs. Siegel and Mrs. Hart!”
In Clods’ Letters to Mad, this was illustrated, by Jaffee, with a ghostly two-headed figure, whose belt buckle read “LSSH,” typing copy for Mad, and a wedding picture that showed the two-headed “LSSH” flanked by two brides.

[Cicero]

Keyser Soze.

[six_personalities]

The Flintstones
The Simpsons
The Jetsons

Oh and me

[Alan_Smithee]

Wow! I can’t believe this thread is still going. Whenever I think it’s dead, along comes a message to my inbox telling me it has another post.

In this thread someone asked (fairly reasonably) if Pi Patel (from the novel Life of Pi) is real. He isn’t. In my reply, I mentioned Nathan Zuckerman, the fictional author of many Philip Roth novels. (Cf. Kilgore Trout).

I hope it isn’t unseemly to add “local” celebrity WallyM7. His existence is discussed here. I know nothing about the matter personally, and hope I’m not bringing up anything painful for fellow Dopers, but I do find the suggestion that he was a adopted persona quite interesting.

Oh, and I suppose I owe dougie_montie an answer to this question:

I am not a lawyer. Who told you I was?

No one at all. You probably answered a legal question once and got accidentally stuck on the list in my head of Dopers to Listen to About Legal Stuff. Sorry about the confusion.
PS–You’re still wrong, :wally
[In tribute to the aforementioned WallyM7, who may never have existed, but still has a smiley named after him.]

[drewbert]

Not actually people, but I think these are in the spirit of the thread:

Mayberry, North Carolina
Lake Wobegone, Minnesota

[Captain_Lance_Murdoch]

The characters of Fargo.

People came to Minnesota from as far away as Japan trying to find the missing money after that movie came out. The stuff in the beginning about it being a true story was just a joke.

I don’t believe anyone is dumb enough to think Paul Bunyan was a real guy.

[Polycarp]

@Triskadecamus

Daniel Boone
born , c. Nov. 2, 1734, Berks County, Pa.
died , c. Sept. 26, 1820, St. Charles, Mo., U.S.Daniel Boone was a real historic person.

Lots of things attributed to him are; of course, exaggerated beyond all truth, but the man himself did exist.

He served in the Virginia House of Delegates, in 1781, and again in 1787, and 1791.

He held other historically documented positions of authority, under various local and state governments, as well as the United States Government.

Tris

You missed a golden opportunity, Tris – you should have begun that post “Daniel Boone was a man, yeah, a reeeeeal man.”

Numerous figures from classical mythology come to mind, though how sure we can be that Agamemnon, Heracles, et al. don’t have a grain of truth behind the legendary figure, I’m not sure. But two people, firmly believed to be real in ancient times and well towards the present by those inclined to read classical authors, but definitely fictional, are Semiramis, Queen of Babylonia, and Memnon, Prince of Ethiopia (the fictional nation of classical legend, not the country Haile Selassie used to run).

[Lambo]

@jackelope

This one’s rather specialized, but no one passes through Georgia Tech without learning of the legend of George P. Burdell. Granted, no one believes he’s real anymore, but they did once; the linked story tells the tale.

So I read your story, and your link, and then I checked a couple things. I currently work at Tech, but since I was never a student there, and mostly hang out with grad students who also were not undergrads there, I never heard the story.

Well, I checked some word and Excel docs I have on my machine: don’t ya know, the author, under ‘properties’, is…George Burdell. And whenever I fire up Word or Excel at work, the software is registered to…George Burdell. All this time, and I thought he was some guy in computing services that did the original install!

[Steve_MB]

@dougie_monty

IBut it seem to me that the Founding Fathers–at least those among them who had that clause inserted into Congress’ powers in Article I–did not foresee such chicanery with authors’ identities.

I’ll have to review the writings of “Publius,” “Brutus,” “The Federal Farmer,” “Cato,” and “Cincinnatus” on that subject…

[Doc_W]

@Jonathan_Chance

I thought it was Admiral ‘Bull’ Kilroy…but I have no cite.

Sgt Joe Friday of Dragnet. Nick at Night used to claim that people would call up the LAPD and ask for him when the show was originally aired.

Admiral ‘Bull’ Kilroy seems to be only in Robert A. Heinlein’s ‘Space Cadet’ I was looking him up while rereading that book when I found this thread! LOL:smack:

[Doc_W]

@drewbert

Not actually people, but I think these are in the spirit of the thread:

Mayberry, North Carolina
Lake Wobegone, Minnesota

I live in North Carolina and it’s said that Mayberry is loosely based on Dobson,NC

[Shmendrik]

@dougie_monty

3. I can’t answer your question about Stephen King–I detest his books and will not read them. (someone once suggested I read them; I said I would rather be illiterate.)

Although this is a 7 year old post, it looks like the author is still active, so I have to ask the obvious question: If you refuse to read the books, how do you know you detest them?

[Nightfall1]

Are you guys kidding?

‘Captain James T Kirk’ - there’s a town in Iowa that claims he’ll be born there in a few centuries. Does that count?
I was there, even got a picture of my wife and I at the Birthstone.

[Ludovic]

@Shmendrik

Although this is a 7 year old post, it looks like the author is still active, so I have to ask the obvious question: If you refuse to read the books, how do you know you detest them?

I’m not the poster you’re addressing, but I’ve read about 30 pages of Stephen King and the writing style was just too simplistic for my tastes. I wouldn’t say I detest his writing, it’s just boring. But even in those 30 pages I could see that he had a talent for characterization, and since his books make good movies he obviously can plot.