Around the same age (ten), I also loved the Simon and Garfunkel LP Bookends, which has lyrics printed on the back. Reading along as “Mrs. Robinson” was playing, I misread “files” as “flies” – “we’d like to know a little bit about you for our flies” – so for several years the song would evoke an image of some sinister agency where insects work, maybe as secretaries. (The word as sung by S and G is obviously “files,” but in such a way that “flies” isn’t entirely implausible).
Since I started actually listening to digital copies of stuff on headphones, I’ve had so many of these realizations.
I only realized this when reading the comments on the episode review at the AV Club.
You know the famous Twilight Zone episode “Living Doll”? Telly Savalas plays a man who married a widow with a child only to find out he couldn’t sire any children of his own. This makes him short-tempered and often angry with his wife and stepdaughter–not to the point of physical abuse, but it’s obvious that the wife is walking on eggshells even before the doll comes into it and it’s safe to assume that the little girl has picked up on it, and that Erich has lashed out in the past.
Well, the little girl’s name is Christie and the doll’s name is (Talky) Tina.
Both of which are short forms of the name “Christina”.
Perhaps a hint that the doll’s actions are some sort of manifestation of what Christie would really like to do to protect herself and her mother? (Even if it hasn’t come to physical abuse yet, it’s not inconceivable, from what we see of Erich, that it couldn’t go that route in the future.)
I had been reviewing “Balance of Terror” for the random STrek quotes thread.
This is not terribly obvious, since one scene is post-climactic, while the other is fairly early. It happens while the basic plot is still unfolding.
At the end of the show two-way communication, including visual, is finally opened with the doomed Romulan ship. We see the Romulan CO at first with his back to us. He then turns around, showing serious burns, and then he turns down Kirk’s gracious offer to take aboard any and all still alive. He presses a button (after remarking that he felt his adversary was similar, and that in other circumstances they might have been friends) which destroys what remains of his vessel.
Early on though, we see the commander of the crippled Star Base 4. He also turns around (because we also at first see only his back) with serious burns. He also presses a button, but this was to lock his visual to the Enterprise main screen. Very soon after this, the station is completely destroyed.
The image of two men with their backs to us at first, and then showing burns, is especially striking, and I doubt it coincidental.
I saw this picture on imgur today, and it immediately reminded me of podracing from The Phantom Menace. And then it clicked that podracing was essentially sci-fi chariot racing, and that was probably Lucas’s intent all along. I wonder if any scenes were lifted from Ben-Hur?
I think Ben-Hur yells “Yippee!” at one point.
Of course, I could be mistaken… 
“Intent” being “borrowing from a vague semi-conscious mish-mash of images Lucas saw on TV and at Saturday matinees as a ten year old”, maybe.
Having watched “The Secret of NIMH” as a child, and young adult, several times, and always enjoying it immensely, it wasn’t until I bought it and watched it in a fit of nostalgia just last year, that I realized that “NIMH” stood for “National Institute of Mental Health”.
I realized this as I was looking at the case and unwrapping it in front of my television. In my shock, I dropped the DVD case to the ground, and stood and quivered in silence for a good several moments as I felt my lizard-brain fire from a long slumber, and I realized how dark the movie really was. I watched it again with several more dimensions opening up before my wide eyes.
I guess I just thought “NIMH” was the name of the farm or the den of rodents, and the guys in white were vermin exterminators.
I used to pass the NIMH headquarters in Washington occasionally. Every time I passed by there I thought of the movie.
It’s been many, and many a long year since I watched Kimba the White Lion but it only occurred to me recently that the name of Kimba’s parrot companion"Pauly" was a pun.
Fascinating. This was one of the last threads I posted to before going AWOL eleven months ago, and here it is still active when I return…
Kurt Busiek’s ASTRO CITY comic featured a masked superhero who had no powers but could parry bullets with his weapon of choice – a cross, if you will, between Zorro and Captain America; his name? Esteban Rodrigo.
Isn’t the meaning of the acronym explained in the movie itself? It’s been years since I saw it, but that’s my recollection.
[quote=“Gary “Wombat” Robson, post:2011, topic:504117”]
Fascinating. This was one of the last threads I posted to before going AWOL eleven months ago, and here it is still active when I return…
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Welcome back.
Maybe not an obvious thing, but:
I binge-watched the first 8 seasons of How I Met Your Mother last year, and I’ve been meaning to start watching the final season now that it’s on Netflix streaming. To refresh my memory of the story so far, I was rewatching some of the season 8 episodes today and there’s one episode where all the characters are telling stories about how bad ass they are, but they each ultimately have to admit they are not bad ass at all. Anyway, there’s a scene where Lily is walking down the street whistling, and a bunch of kids get scared and run off shouting “Lily comin’!”
I didn’t get the reference when I watched HIMYM last year because I hadn’t watched The Wire until this summer.
Dang. etv78 welcomes me back and gets banned within a few hours. Don’t welcome me back, people!
I don’t think this one’s been mentioned.
In Pulp Fiction, there’s the scene where Vincent takes Mia out on a “date”. There’s a dance contest and they enter it. Mia says she wants the trophy.
The movie shows the couple dancing and then cuts to a scene with them back at Mia’s house with the trophy. The obvious implication is they won the dance contest.
But if you listen to the background noise carefully, there’s a TV set playing and a news report is saying the restaurant was robbed and the trophy was stolen. So Vincent and Mia didn’t win the contest but they went ahead and stole the trophy anyway.
Another obvious one I missed.
Hamlet refers to death as “the undiscover’d country, from whose bourn no traveller returns”. Okay, that makes sense. When people die, they’re gone forever.
Except when they’re not. Hamlet had been having conversations with his father’s ghost earlier in the play.
I just watched the scene in question and I don’t hear the TV… there’s an alarm, crickets, then “You’ll be a Woman Soon”… ?
I’ve been marathoning Futurama, lately (just have the back half of season 7 left), and something occurred to me about the Popplers episode as I was humming the jingle, afterward.
The fast food place that they contract with to sell the Popplers is Fishy Joe’s. It seemed weird that an apparent seafood place would sell them (since they’re land-harvested), but, eh one supposes they branched out.
But, on the other hand…
‘Fishy’ is certainly a good description for a place that would sell a foodstuff that (to quote the jingle) ‘Where they come from is a mystery, what they’re made of, no one knows’… (Or maybe the two descriptors are reversed…it means the same thing, either way.)