just shoutouts to good ones: star spangled banner and “trick or treat”
regarding kilroy: they were teaching it in middle school when i was there roughly a decade ago.
as far as movie quotes? i think “Heeerrreee’s JOHNNYYYY” is more famous than any quote previously mentioned in the fact that people know it’s a quote and not just a statement of presence. IDing the movie? a taller order.
Movie quote? It’s only a famous movie quote because it was a famous TV quote first.
And even then, I think you’d get a lot of blank faces on both nowadays.
I’m not saying he’s never seen or heard of Darth Vader, just that he couldn’t identify him. I’m pretty sure if he saw a picture, he could tell you that he’s a character from a movie or tv, but I doubt he could name him or tell you it was Star Wars. If you made him guess the show, I think he’d be at least as likely to say “Star Trek” as “Star Wars.”
If you asked him who Luke’s father was, he’d tell you to look in the Bible.
I don’t remember any of Luke’s family members getting a mention in the bible. Do you know where he’d suggest looking first? I can’t imagine it would be in the gospel but I can’t think of any sections of Acts where it would fit in either.
You’d be wrong. I worked a scummy summer job once in Decatur, IL. I asked this high school girl who George Washington was; she guessed that he discovered America. Her boyfriend knew that he was the first president – and that he grew hemp.
It’s not there. But it’s what he’d think of.
Golden Arches
Darth Vader isn’t in the bible??!!
Y’all have been reading the wrong bible. 
Underline mine. Non-universal actually 
Someone recently explained the meaning of that baseball analogy in a GQ thread and I’m one of several foreigners who thanked that poster for that explanation.
In the beginning was the Force, and the Force was in balance, and the Force was balance. And the Force became midichlorians and dwelt within us.
Except when “did he get to second base” actually means “did he stretch a single into a double”. There needs to be more context to make the sexual connection unambiguous.
Ugh, dude, that’s from the heretical prequel to Genesis. Everybody knows that the real Bible starts with the Lord helping two droids miraculously dodge stormtrooper fire while Rebel soldiers die like flies all around them.
“I’m not normally a praying man, but if you’re up there, please save me, Superman!”
Several of our former presidents qualified under those criteria.
“What’s up?” is a strange question to people who didn’t grow up in America.
We use Fahrenheit instead of Celsius.
American Football!
Americans hardly know who other country’s presidents are but everyone else around the world knows who our president is.
McDonald’s, Starbucks, Playboy, Michael Jackson, and Oprah Winfrey all make me think of America.
Our restaurant portions’ sizes are huge.
Most people who have a washing machine have a dryer as well.
I recently had some job training a few months ago overseas and you could tell who was American by who had a battery operated toothbrush. ONLY Americans had them.
We also wear plaid shirts with striped ties.
It’s hard to believe, but there are people who just don’t absorb pop culture, nor want to. My mother was alive up to 1990, but I’m very sure she wouldn’t have the slightest idea what “Beam me up, Scotty,” “We’re not in Kansas anymore,” or “May the Force be with you” meant, since she never, ever went to the movies, and didn’t have a TV most of her life. Her experiences and friends just never approached the sources of those iconic quotes.
I don’t find that hard to believe at all. Well, maybe not knowing The Wizard of Oz, but I can still manage to believe it.
So what about Superman? Could she recognize a picture of him? If you said the name, could she tell you that he wears a cape? That he flies? Could she complete the “Look! Up in the sky!” quote?
If not, is there any pop cultural item she would know? Did she ever listen to music? Read books to her children?
What about Mickey Mouse and McDonald’s? Could she tell you anything about either of them?
Hard to tell for sure, as she’s dead now. But if you’ve never been to the movies and neither have your friends (movies are evil and the work of the devil), it’s not likely you will know this.
Lots of books (she was a primary grades schoolteacher), but none published by Disney or other “pop” sources. Mostly books about how God Loves You, Thornton Burgess animal stories and Noah’s Ark. News only from religious and “trusted” sources.
Maybe. Even those are hard to ignore.
I’m amazed at how many contemporary cultural references my neighbors don’t know in 2011, or if they’ve heard about something from CNN or NBC news, they don’t know what it is. iPad? Whatzat?
I believe the easiest one that I don’t think has been mentioned yet is the alphabet song.