That Flipper and Skippy had essentially the same premise, and were essentially the same show, one filmed on water, the other in the bush.
I don’t know Skippy, but Lassie and Flipper are basically the same.
And as to Puff, do you really think that Peter, Paul, and Mary would have shied away from admitting that it was about marijuana, if it were? What incentive would they have to lie?
My self-esteem has taken quite the hit as I’ve read this thread and realized all the things that I have missed in life. I did figure out the Saturn emblem all by myself and further, the SL series driver door panels had a swoosh up them like the rings of Saturn too.
I had seen 4 Weddings and a Funeral several times before someone told me the two men weren’t just close friends, but a couple. Woosh.
I actually didn’t get that The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was supposed to be commedic until I heard it on tape.
I also didn’t realize the Chronicles of Narnia were Christian. Even though I had found them in my church library. It was years before I read the last two books (3 & 7 chronologically) because I was scared to death reading a about false gods.
Trivia note: The Alphabet Song, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and Baa Baa Black Sheep all have the same music.
Song: I’m surprised nobody mentioned this, but a famous obscure song meaning is that “Turning Japanese” is actually about masturbation. I found this more interesting than the actual song.
I also really enjoyed the explanation of Madonna’s “Like a Virgin” in Reservoir Dogs.
Comics: Charlie Brown is actually an existentialist work about failure and the human condition of dealing with it. If you read it, Charlie Brown has never, ever succeeded at any single action he’s ever taken in the entire series.
Without Garfield, Jon is actually a sad, sad person.
The Hulk is actually about loneliness and isolation.
Superman is actually an illegal alien with a fraudulent birth certificate. Also, Bill’s speech in Kill Bill Vol 2 was very illuminating.
Sherlock Holmes was actually a total jerk who treated Watson like a retarded child. “Elementary, my dear Watson” actually means “What an idiot you are, Watson.” I figured this out after becoming a huge fan of House MD and learning it was based on Sherlock Holmes.
(As a side note, this is also a very famous fact: House and Wilson are supposedly Holmes and Watson.)
Calvin (of Calvin and Hobbes) has some severe emotional and psychological problems.
Not since Crisis. Superman was still in utero when the ship crashed. (It’s called a birthing matrix for a reason.) and thus could perfectly legitimately run for President.
And the ‘Elementary’ part is from the movies. It’s a bit less jerkish in the books.
I thought the Turning Japanese=masturbation was just a rumor?
Well, the band members themselves deny it, so yeah, at least for the song it’s just a rumor.
Elementary school, my dear Watson! (Wassup, Holmes?) (Video with sound)
Even before that silly fanwank, he was still a natural-born citizen, by virtue of being a foundling found in Kansas, whose citizenship was not challenged before the age of 18.
Since the sentiment prior to the movie was that his home town was in Maryland, what would the law have been there?
Really? I thought Smallville was always in Kansas. Still, that’s a principle of law everywhere that draws from common law, not just Kansas specifically.
I thought superman’s smallville was just like the simpson’s “springfield.”
They play it kind of coy about Metropolis, where he’s based as Superman and works for the Daily Planet as Clark Kent. But for decade after decade after decade, his hometown of Smallville has explicitly been in Kansas.
Originally in Iowa, later Maryland, finally Kansas.
I didn’t figure out until I read Daemons Are Forever the third time that the name of the universe destroying weapon The Deplorable End is a reference to the Deplorable Word of Empress Jadis’s in the Narnia books that killed all life on her world of Charn.
Before I answer, let me say I accept completely what the wikipedia article on the song says. Puff, the Magic Dragon - Wikipedia
(The article also says something I didn’t know until now: it was inspired by an Ogden Nash poem which I’m familiar with.)
But solely for the sake of argument, isn’t it at least conceivable they might prank everyone and keep up with the denial? After all, they’re human, not saints (witness Yarrow’s 1970 sexual misconduct conviction). They might lie for monetary/reputation reasons. If it were a marijuana reference, parents and teachers might never let small kids hear it/might never buy PPM songs or albums again. (Of course, Yarrow’s crime had no effect on their popularity. But I hadn’t even heard about about it until I read something online a couple of years ago.)
It looks to me from the Wikipedia entry that there has never really been any consistent decision about where Smallville is. In some things it’s in Iowa, in others it’s in Maryland, in still others it’s either in Pennsylvania or New Jersey, while in most recent things it’s been in Kansas. It sounds a lot like many other facts about Superman’s biography, which changes whenever there’s a new writer with a different idea about what Superman’s life should have been like. Given that Joe Schuster modeled the skyline of Metropolis after Toronto, where he was born, maybe we should assume that Smallville is in Ontario. For what it’s worth (and it’s not worth much at all), growing up I always assumed that Metropolis was Chicago and Smallville was somewhere in southern Illinois.
Actually the original Charlie Brown was occasionally proactive and even got away with things sometimes. I liked that version better. Unfortunately Schulz decided a total loser would be funnier. YMMV.
I was rewatching the animated Superman episode starring Mxyzsptlk I noticed a scene where he’s tugging on Superman’s cape, and I think “ha ha”. But then I watched the commentary and they didn’t mention it at all. So was it just coincidental?
I’ve got this great T-shirt that depicts Charlie Brown gleefully kicking Lucy’s bloody, severed head. Payback for all those years of yanking the football away 
And speaking of losers … I saw a The Born Loser strip years ago that had the title character at the grocery store checkstand. As he’s walking away he looks into his hand, then returns to the cashier and says, “Excuse me, but I you gave me the wrong amount of change.”
The crabby cashier says, “Well you should have brought it up at the time! Nothing I can do about it now!”
And Brutus says, “That’s too bad. You gave me too much.”
As he’s walking away he looks right at the reader with a big smile on his face and says, “Occasionally I win one.”