Triumph the Insult Comic Dog is puppet voiced and manipulated by Robert Smigel. He debuted on Late Night with Conan O’Brien as cigar chomping, Catskills insult comic dog. Some of his famous bits include insulting fans standing in line for Star Wars: The Phantom Menace and people auditioning for American Idol.
“Bill Swerski’s Superfans” was a recurring sketch on Saturday Night Live, and was created by Robert Smigel (who also appeared in the sketches) and Bob Odenkirk.
The sketch, which first appeared on the January 12, 1991 episode of SNL, featured a group of rabid Chicago sports fans, all of which wore Mike Ditka’s trademark mustache and dark glasses, who would make outlandish claims about the prowess of Chicago’s sports teams (particularly “Da Bears”) in thick Chicago accents, while eating large quantities of meat.
The Catskill Mountains, sometimes also referred to as the “Jewish Alps”, were the location of the ‘Borscht Belt’. Generally accepted to be a region of about 250 square miles approximately an hour-and-a-half drive northwest of New York City, the area became known by that name due to the large number of summer resorts, which were long a popular vacation location for the Jewish community of New York City and environs between the 1920 and the 1980s. Many famed comics such as Mel Brooks, Danny Kaye, Sid Caesar, and Red Buttons, among others, got their starts performing at these resorts.
-“BB”-
@Bicycle_Bill – you probably didn’t see the most recent post in the thread.
Here we go–Pennsylvania
Silly Discourse, putting your posts in a Thread Games thread.
Arrrrgggh…need to go to bed.
Trying to tie together the last three bits o’ trivia:
Tom Vilsack, who served throughout President Barack Obama’s two terms as Secretary of Agriculture, and is going to be nominated to serve in that post again by President-elect Joe Biden, attended my alma mater, the prep school Shady Side Academy just outside Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Pennsylvania adjoins New York State. Those two states and Illinois, in which Chicago is situated, were all carried by Biden in the Nov. 3 election.
The Erie Triangle of Pennsylvania is approximately 300 square miles in size and gives the state its only connection to the Great Lakes. The water off the coast of the Erie Triangle is known as the Graveyard of Lake Erie because of the large number of shipwrecks that occurred in the area’s stormy waters in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Pennsylvania is one of eight US states that border one or more of the Great Lakes. The others are Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Wisconsin, and New York. The state of Michigan borders four of the five Great Lakes, all but Lake Ontario. Lake Michigan is the only Great Lake that does not border Canada.
The state of Minnesota is home to teams in all four major North American professional sports leagues: the NFL’s Vikings, the NBA’s Timberwolves, the NHL’s Wild, and MLB’s Twins. All of these teams are named after the entire state of Minnesota, rather than a particular home city, such as Minneapolis or St. Paul.
In the early 60s, Newsday on Long Island would refer to the Minnesota Twins as the “Minneapolis Twins” on the theory that teams needed to be named for cities, not states.
One reason the team took the “Minnesota” name was the rivalry between Minneapolis and St. Paul. It’s rumored that a priest in Minneapolis chose to preach a sermon on St. Paul and his entire congregation walked out. The two cities were bitter rivals in the American Association minor league.
There have been three professional baseball leagues called the American Association. The first one was a 'Major" league existing from 1882 to 1891. Four former Four former AA clubs, the Pittsburgh Pirates, the Cincinnati Reds, the Los Angeles Dodgers and the St. Louis Cardinals still exist.
The second American Association was a minor league that played at Triple-A level (one step below the Major Leagues from 1902 to 1962 and from 1969 to 1997.
The third and last (to date) American Association was founded in 2005 as an independent league rather than a ‘farm team’ owned/sponsored by a Major League team. It is still playing with 10 teams due to begin the 2021 season.
The names of the current teams in the American Association are the Dogs, RedHawks, RailCats, Milkmen, Goldeyes, Railroaders, T-Bones, Saltdogs, Explorers, and Canaries.
Until 1952, the original 16 major league teams occupied only ten cities. New York had three, with two each in Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago and St. Louis.
Not in play: What did the Norwegian say the first time he read the Bible?
“Vell, dere’s a lot about St. Paul, but it doesn’t mention Minneapolis at all!”
Cute one.
In play:
The 14 NFL teams in the playoffs this year are, by conference and seedings:
NFC
- Green Bay
- New Orleans
- Seattle
- Washington
- Tampa Bay
- Los Angeles
- Chicago
AFC
- Kansas City
- Buffalo
- Pittsburgh
- Tennessee
- Baltimore
- Cleveland
- Indianapolis
Tampa is home to the world’s longest continuous sidewalk. Alongside Bayshore Blvd in downtown Tampa, the sidewalk is4.5 miles long, The path is used by cyclists, joggers, and walkers alike, and is lined with palm trees and features never ending views of the bay.
The Sunshine Skyway Bridge is a highway bridge which crosses Lower Tampa Bay, connecting St. Petersburg to Terra Cela. The original bridge had two parallel spans, one completed in 1954, and the other in 1971. On May 9, 1980, the southbound span of the bridge collapsed after a support pier was struck by a freighter ship, causing over 1200 feet of that span to fall into the bay; 35 people who were in motor vehicles on the bridge at that time were killed.
After the disaster, a new Sunshine Skyway bridge was built, and was completed in 1987.
Tampa was acquired from France in 1803 as part of the 828,000 square mile Louisiana Purchase for 2.83 cents per acre.
Tampa, Kansas, that is.