I noticed this when watching a repeat of How I Met Your Mother last night. During “The Leap”, Marshall threatens to jump over to the next building (and into the cool hot tub they have). Lily, obviously, has concerns about this and Marshall tells her that he’s like “Evel Knievel about to jump over Snake River Canyon.” Lily explodes and tells him that “I’ll never be Linda Knievel!”
It’s a funny gag and Evel Knievel is an iconic daredevil, but Marshall was born in the late 70s, several years after the Snake River Canyon jump. Someone that obsessed with him would have to be at least ten years older than Marshall (and have seen the jump when they were a little kid) for the reference to make sense.
What are some of your favorites?*
Oh, and I request that we all skip the Buffy references as you can point to a few per episode. For example, in “The Zeppo” Xander talks about how much he loved “Wanna Be Starting Something” when it first came out. But Thriller (the album it’s on) came out in 1982, when Xander wasn’t even a year old.
You’re forgetting that Marshall had a bunch of older brothers. If any of them was an Evel Knievel fan, he absolutely would be too.
-Morbo, youngest of five brothers
My contribution: I never believed that Matt Damon would be so connected with the underground poker scene and for that matter be that good at poker in Rounders. Way too young, IMO.
I’m roughly Marshall and Lily’s age, and I know of Eval Knieval, even remember a kid (my age) who had that stunt cycle and was sort of mildly obsessed with the guy.
I agree. Lilly wouldn’t know about the Knievals beyond basic surface knowledge, but Marshall and his testosterone-pumped brothers would totally be into it.
Totally believable that she’d learn all about it from him always blathering on about it.
Exactly. You know of Knievel. But you’re not going to be obsessed with him and you’re not going to know who his wife was at the time of the Snake River Canyon jump.
The line was clearly written by someone in their early 40s, instead of fit for Marshall’s early 30s.
You’re about to attempt a death-defying leap. You want to pump yourself up. Who are you going to compare yourself to? A world-famous daredevil who your older brothers talked about when you were a kid, whose daredevil stunt cycle was still being used by some kids in the neighborhood (per TBG), or. . .
Really, who?
Besides, Carter Bays and Criag Thomas, who wrote the episode, were both born about 1975, graduating in 1997, so they wouldn’t have experienced the jump first-hand either.
As for Lily knowing who Evel’s wife was, as Ted would say, “They tell each other everything. EVERYTHING!”
From about 2003 to 2005, I worked with a black guy who was in his mid-twenties at the time, and thus born around 1980. He was a huge, huge Sinatra fan: listened to him constantly, could rattle off trivia about him at a moment’s notice, judged all other artists by the Sinatra standard, etc.
For that matter, my favorite musician in high school and college was Bonnie Raitt. This was before her comeback with Nick of Time in '89.
I met a little kid recently – no more than 12 he was – who absolutely adores the novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs.
On the final episode of The Brady Bunch Peter was earning money by selling hair tonic. Not only did few if any teenagers use hair tonic in the 1970s, few would have known what it was. The writer of the episode was in his late 50s and had recycled a plot he used on a radio show in the 1940s. (Robert Reed thought the hair tonic plot was so stupid and outdated he refused to appear in the episode.)
Juno comes to mind. When she goes into labor, she yells “Thundercats are go!” Not bad, considering that she was likely born roughly five years after Thundercats went off the air. The screenwriter, on the other hand, was between 7 and 9 years old when the show was airing. Huh, the target age for the show. Who would have thought? The only explanation for the character would be that the show was released on DVD roughly a year prior but that’s still pretty weak.
Or, you know, people aren’t oblivious to things that happened before them. I didn’t watch Thundercats when it first aired (I was only three when it ended), but I still reference them.
I think Silver Tyger Girl is too young to have watched 'Cats when first they aired, but she loves 'em to death. The two most rabid Star Trek TOS fans I know are both not only too young to have ever seen the series i first run, but both of an age where they’d have grown up with TNG, which neither likes.
Ditto what the others said regarding Marshall knowing who Evel was. Also, don’t forget, as Evel was settling down, Super Dave was picking up steam. I’m 31 and remember watching Super Dave as a kid, at some point I learned who Evel was and the connection was pretty clear. If I wanted to, I’m sure I could have gone down to the library and rented some Evel Knievel videos or caught some specials on TV. Also, like the others said, he had older brothers and a dad who may have been into that stuff (there were supposed to be a pretty wild bunch).
Yeah, I’m not sure where the idea that there’s some kind of wall between things that happened before someone was born and them knowing anything about those things. I grew up listening to music that was new between 5 and 20 years before I was born (“oldies”). I can still sing along without missing a word to most of those songs and I reference them all the time. Just because someone didn’t experience the era that something happened directly doesn’t mean they don’t know anything about that era.
I notice this constantly on Criminal Minds. They’ll have little kids and teenagers named stuff like Judy, Betty, Gail, Bob, Dick, which I guess might happen IRL occasionally but it’s frequent enough that I really notice. And yeah, I know that grandma names are back in fashion, but these tend to be a different generation than the popular “old-lady” names and always makes me think of people who were teenagers in the 50s and 60s.
Yep. I’m 34, my brother is 28. Thanks to Nick at Nite we’ve seen every episode of Dobie Gillis, Car 54, Mr. Ed and so on, even though they were all off the air 11-13 years before I was even born.
I’ve been complimented on my musical knowledge of 50s-70s music as well, and that’s thanks to my parents’ influence.
That’s what I notice the most too. *Great-*grandparent names are what’s in fashion - the parents naming their kids after their own grandparents and that starting a trend - not names of people born in the 60s.
It happens a lot in kids’ and YA books. It’s fine to have a character or two with an out-of-place name, but it looks wrong when it’s the entire class. Jacqueline Wilson’s early books were full of this, but she improved as time went on. It’s not as if it’s exactly hard to look up names that were popular when your character was born, and a kids’ writer should be spending some time with their target age-group anyway.
It’s also fine to have a character reference something from before their time, but only if it fits the character.
Another thing to keep in mind is that part of what keeps a kid watching a show is that it appeals to the parent as well. If mom/dad is bored out of their mind with it, they’re going to find something else. I’ve seen iCarly and Sponge Bob reference things that haven’t been part of pop culture for 20 years. Clearly jokes directed at the parents that are watching the show with the kids.
It’s entirely possible that people like Sherwood Schwartz were aware that in order to keep their ratings up (and sponsors happy) they had to entertain not only the kids but but toss a joke or story line towards mom and dad from time to time as well.
Having said that, I’ll agree with elfkin as well in that, my knowledge of ‘stuff’ doesn’t cut off with my day of birth, I’m certainly aware of things that happened well before I was born and it’s fair to assume the characters on the shows I watch are as well.