The Underminer, from The Incredibles, is a mole like supervillain, who travels underground in a gigantic drill-tipped tank.
The supervillain The Underminer, voiced by John Ratzenberger, appears at both the very end of The Incredibles, and at the very beginning of Incredibles 2, which resumes the action just seconds later (Ratzenberger has provided voices for most of the Pixar movies over the years). A third Incredibles movie is now planned for June 2028.
In The Incredibles (2004), at the 1:40:27 mark in the film, the character Doc Hudson from Cars (2006) can be seen parked on the street at the left on the screen.
Doc Hudson, a navy-blue 1951 Hudson Hornet, was voiced by Paul Newman, who passed way in 2008 at the age of 83.
Although Cars was released after The Incredibles, development of Cars was well under way.
The Green Hornet (Britt Reid) is the great-nephew of the Lone Ranger (John Reid). They were both created by George W. Trendle and Fran Striker as radio dramas.
In the original radio series (1933 - 1954) a total of eight voice actors filled in as The Lone Ranger, while John Todd provided the voice of Tonto for the entire series. Except for a few isolated occasions, he was replaced by Roland Parker, the voice of Kato in The Green Hornet radio series.
The Green Hornet’s car was known as the Black Beauty. It was a 1966 Chrysler Imperial Crown.
This was in the old 1966 TV series starring Van Williams and Bruce Lee.
There were a few actual fights on the set of The Green Hornet between Bruce Lee and stuntmen on the set who challenged his martial arts ability. Lee won all challenges.
In an interview Chuck Norris (at least) once said it was annoying because wherever he’d go he’d always be challenged by people who wanted to fight him.
Chuck Norris made his film debut as a bad guy fighting Bruce Lee in the 1972 martial arts film The Way of the Dragon. They filmed it in and around the Colosseum- illegally. No permits.
The Komodo dragon is the largest living lizard, capable of growing up to 10 feet long.
Komodo Island is part of the Indonesian Archipelago, the largest archipelagic state in the world. Indonesia has around 18,000 islands; as of 2023, 17,024 islands have been named by Geospatial Information Agency.
The Philippines consists of approximately 7,641 islands. Only about 2,000 islands are permanently inhabited, while more than 5,000 are yet to be officially named.
Santa Catalina Island, better known as Catalina, is an island located off the coast of California. One of the Channel Islands, it is politically part of Los Angeles County. From 1919 to 1975, the Wrigley Company owned controlling interest in the island and invested millions of dollars in improvements in infrastructure and real estate. From 1921 through 1951, the Chicago Cubs, also owned by Wrigley, used the island for spring training.
In 1975, Wrigley donated 90% of the island’s land to the Catalina Island Conservancy.
The Wrigley Company (the Chicago iteration; William Wrigley Jr.'s father ran a soap business in Philadelphia) got started with soap. The company would include a lagniappe with every box of soap: a can of baking powder. Soon the baking powder was more popular than the soap (I’ve no idea how; baking powder is a simple and abundant chemical and one company’s baking powder is going to be exactly the same as any other’s), and so the company ditched the soap and moved to selling baking powder. The company would provide a lagniappe with each order of baking powder: a few sticks of gum. You guessed it: the gum became more popular than the baking powder and so the company pivoted to gum. Presumably they stopped giving lagniappe with their gum, as it seems to have stuck (no pun intended).
The term “lagniappe,” meaning “a little something extra,” originated in New Orleans’ Cajun and Creole culture. Its origin is not entirely clear, but it is speculated that it was derived from the South American Spanish term “la ñapa,” meaning “gift,” which in turn appears to have come from the indigenous Quechua term “yapa,” also meaning “gift” or “something added.”
One of the very first creole languages dates to the 17th century and is called Guugu Yimithirr, spoken in Queensland, Australia. The Guugu Yimithirr are an Aboriginal Australian people from Far North Queensland.
Schultze Gets the Blues, is a bittersweet German film about a retired Salt miner who gets so into zydeco (a form of creole music) he travels to Louisiana.
The “vest frottoir,” or “vest rubboard,” is a percussion instrument which is prominently used in zydeco music. It is a variation on the washboard, and is built to be worn over the shoulders.
The most unusual percussion instrument ever used in a musical composition are arguably cannon, which Tchaikovsky famously used in his classic ‘1812 Overture’ — although a strong case could be made for the chainsaw used by the rock band ‘Jackyl’ in their song ‘The Lumberjack’.
-“BB”-
In 2015 the band Orkestra Obsolete released their cover of the New Order song, “Blue Monday.” OO eschewed conventional instruments in favor of objects more common to the 1930s, even going back to the previous century. Among the musical instruments, such as a harmonium, a dulcimer, and a Theremin, there were singing glasses, a musical saw, and a Diddley Bow.