Will Rogers, Antoine Saint-Exuprey, and Butch O’Hare share two common, seemingly incompatible attributes.
All three have airports named after them, and all three died in a plane crash.
(There may be others in this group, but I can’t think of them.)
Queen Victoria had a prolapsed uterus.
Although it’s covered with ice, Antarctica is the driest place on earth, with humidity lower than the Gobi desert.
Princess Alexandra of Bavaria lived her life under the delusion that she had swallowed a full-sized piano made of glass.
Try this one in a sports bar:
Besides being three of the greatest home run hitters of all time, what do Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron and Willie Mays have in common?
They all ended their major league careers in the same city they began them in, but for a different team.
Ruth: Boston Red Sox—>Boston Braves
Aaron: Milwaukee Braves—>Milwaukee Brewers
Mays: NY Giants—>NY Mets
In GWTW, Melanie remarks of Rhett and Scarlett’s newborn daughter, “Why, her eyes are as blue as the bonnie blue flag.” This inspires the parents to name the baby Bonnie Blue Butler.
Sampiro’s hilarious paean to the elephant, hyrax, and manatee reminds me of this group, called the Paenungulata (some of which are the Tethytheres, but I’ll leave to Darwin’s Finch the clarification of which groups are in and which out). With Sampiro having listed the three very disparate surviving orders of Paenungulates, it’s probably appropriate to link to illustrations of members of the two extinct paenungulate orders: Desmostylus of the Desmostylia, and Arsinotherium of the Embrithopoda.
From the movie “Marathon Man:”
At the beginning of the movie, there is a scene where a highly PO-ed “jehudi” (played by Lou Gilbert) is shoving a German whose Mercedes is stalled. The German is played by an actor credited as “Ben Dova.” Ha Ha!
“Ben Dova” in real life was Joseph Spah, a passenger who survived the Hindenburg explosion, and was even once suspected of sabotage in that disaster.
His character was portrayed in the movie “Hindenburg” by Robert Clary.
Some parts of Virginia are further west than parts of Michigan.
All dalmations are deaf, or have pronounced hearing deficiencies. That is why they are traditionally associated with firehouses: they won’t get spooked when all the loud alarms go off.
F.C.C. regulations forbid any television advertisements to depict the consumption of alcohol in advertisements. Just pay attention to any tv spot for beer, wine, etc. No one will actually be shown drinking.
Gary Burghoff - famous as ‘Radar O’Reilly’ in the movie & tv show ‘M.A.S.H.’ - was missing part of a finger on one hand (can’t remember which one). Great care was taken to obscure his hand when he was onscreen (because a missing digit would have precluded him from induction into the armed forces.)
During his stint as writer/artist on the comic book “Wonder Woman”, John Byrne ran a multi-issue story in which the titular heroine was killed (& eventually ressurected). While the specific issue in which Wonder Woman (a.k.a. ‘Princess Diana’) died was on the newstands, Lady Diana Spencer, Princess of Wales (a.k.a. ‘Princess Diana’) was killed in a car crash.
Can you provide a cite for this? My understanding from my college course work in Radio-TV was that the prohibition on alcohol consumption was self-imposed by the NAB (National Association of Broadcasters). One of my professors explained that the reason for this was that in the early days, advertisers were allowed to show the product being drunk, but one of the actors in one of the spots appeared to be underage.
The course work was 20 years ago and I may not be remembering correctly. However, we did spend considerable time covering The Communications of 1934 and I don’t recall that being part of the law.
Perhaps I’m wrong about the F.C.C. banning it, but the gist of it is true - ads for alcohol won’t show people actually drinking.
That part I will stipulate, and, barring evidence to the contrary, for the anecdotal evidence I mentioned earlier.
Telly Savalas is also missing a finger. You can see it in Kojak if you pay attention.
Harold Lloyd also lost a finger in an filming accident (a firecracker went off while he was holding it). After the accident, he used a prosthetic to hide it, and it was retouched in photo shoots.
Peter Falk has a glass eye.
And contrary to popular belief, Sandy Duncan does not have a glass eye.
She used to, but she lost it in a poker game to Peter Falk.
The twins who played Adam on Bewitched were adopted at birth and as young adults sought their birth parents. Their bio-mother was a young actress when they were conceived; according to her and according to them their bio-father is Tony Curtis. Their pics as adults almost negate the need for DNA testing (they especially look like his role as Stony Curtis The pic is from the Flintstones episode “Wilma Auditions for Prissy in STONE WITH THE WIND”.
For quite a few years in the later 20th Century, over 1% of the GNP of a country recognized by the United States came from the sale of science fiction.
The U.S. never recognized the 1940 takeover by the Soviet Union of Lithuania, and the handful of Lithuanian diplomats and expatriates retaining their citizenship while living in the U.S. were deemed as the successor government-in-exile. Among them were the parents of Algis Budrys, 1950-60s S.F. author and proprietor of the Science Fiction Book Shop in NYC.
That isn’t true. While deafness is not rare among Dalmatians, but I’ve known many of the breed with no hearing impairments whatsoever. Deaf pups should be humanely put down by responsible breeders.
Dalmatian Club of America position on deafness in Dalmatians
Don’t breed or buy while shelter pets die!
I wasn’t sure about this either, my understanding is that Dalmations became associated with firehouses because the first fire house was located in Dalmatia.
But I was wrong about that too, apparently. I did some searching, and it looks like dalmations became the fireman’s dog of choice because they were particularly good with the horses, while being exceptional watchdogs. On the way to the fire, they could keep up with the horses while clearing the path by nipping at the heels of other horses who didn’t get out of the way. At the scene of a fire, Dalmations would keep non-firemen away from the fire wagon and keep the horses calm. Another aspect was simply the wow factor - back in the days of privatized firefighting, firemen kept their gear looking primo so as to attract the most customers. Dalmations had the unique look that attracted attention.
Cite 1
Cite 2
Cite 3 (about halfway down the page.)
The deafness thing is cool peice of trivia too - thanks to **TNAIS ** for motivating me to look this stuff up 
I just gotta pick this nit. While you may have known many Dalmations that were able to hear, many carriers are unilaterally deaf. Being able to document that both ears hear requires something called brainstem auditory evoked response (BAER) testing. Dalmation breeders who are into improvement of their breed use only sires/dams that have been BAER tested.
I bow to vetbridge’s greater knowledge, and acknowledge that too many breeders are not concerned about improvement of the breed, which is why Dalmatians have the reputation for deafness.
BTW, I had a veterinarian friend who owned a deaf dalmatian. It did well, because his second dog could hear and they were inseparable. I once asked him what his dalmatian’s name was. When he told me, I asked, “why?”.