The Ford LTD was a range of models produced by Ford for the 1966 through 1986 model years; the LTDs were Ford’s “top of the line” models. The LTD line included four-door sedans, two-door coupes, and station wagons.
The LTDs were full-sized cars until their fourth generation (beginning with the 1983 model year), when they were downsized to the mid-size class, with a new full-sized car, the LTD Crown Victoria, filling that former role. The LTD was replaced in Ford’s lineup by the Taurus in the 1986 model year.
The Australian Ford LTD was produced by Ford Australia between 1973 and 2007. They were built in Melbourne, Victoria, in southeastern Australia, and in Brisbane, Queensland, in eastern Australia. They were the local versions of the American Ford Fairlane.
The Ford Fairlane took its name from Henry Ford’s estate, Fair Lane, near Dearborn MI USA.
The Adventures of Ford Fairlane was a 1990 film and a weird combo of mystery action and usually not-funny comedy, starring Andrew Dice Clay. The film was hated by critics and not a financial success.
A critic of early American statesman Henry Clay, Whig of Kentucky, compared him to “a rotten mackerel by moonlight,” because he “both stank and shined.”
Not in play: when I was in grade school, and learned, in history class, that there had been a political party in the U.S.'s early years called the Whigs, I assumed that it was the “Wig Party,” as pictures of the Founding Fathers depicted many of them wearing wigs.
In play:
The 1954 post-apocalyptic horror novel, I Am Legend, by Richard Matheson, depicted a man who may have been the sole survivor of an apocalyptic war, save for humans who had been transformed by a plague, and who exhibited qualities similar to vampires. The novel has been adapted for film three times: The Last Man on Earth (1954, in which Vincent Price played the survivor), The Omega Man (1971, with Charlton Heston), and I Am Legend (2007, with Will Smith).
The novel, and its vampires, was also an influence on George Romero as he developed the film Night of the Living Dead, and, by extension, the novel was an influence on the modern zombie genre.
Although Zombies are sometimes shown to be hard to kill in film- for example in Night of the Living Dead you needed a kill shot to the brain or total body destruction- in Fantasy Role Playing Games, they are quite easy to defeat, such as in D&D or even Call of Cthulhu .
Actors who have played Zeus, ruler of the Greek pantheon, in film include Sir Laurence Oliver (Clash of the Titans, 1981), Liam Neeson (remake of Clash of the Titans, 2010), Russell Crowe (Thor: Love and Thunder, 2022), Sean Bean (Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, 2010), Rip Torn (Disney’s Hercules, 1997), and Niall MacGinniss (Jason and the Argonauts, 1963).
Remember the Titans is a 2000 Disney movie based, quite loosely, on the true story of the 1971 football season at TC Williams High Shool in Alexandria, Virginia. The film posits that the school had just integrated prior to the school year. In fact, Alexandria schools had integrated a decade earlier.
Also, about a year after the film came out, Chatham, Illinois (a well to do suburb of Springfield) changed the name of its mascot from an offensive slur (think: Washington’s pre-Commanders football team) to the Titans.
The Titan family of rockets were manufactured by the Glenn L. Martin Company (later, the Lockheed Martin Corporation) and began as ICBMs before adapting to the space program. The rockets include: Titan I, Titan II, Titan IIIA, Titan IIIB, Titan IIIC, Titan IIID, Titan IIIE, Titan IIIM, Titan 34D (“What knockers!”), and Titan IV. The Titan V was drawn up but later scrapped by Martin over the less expensive Atlas rockets. The last launch was at Vandenberg Air Force Base on October 19, 2005, and carried the USA-186 optical imaging satellite for the National Reconnaissance Office.
Glenn Cunningham (1909-1988), a native Kansan, was a middle-distance runner who competed in the 1930s. Although he almost lost both legs in a school fire at age 8, he managed to overcome that handicap and at times held world records in the mile, indoor mile, and 800 meter races. He finished second in the 1500 meter race in the 1936 Olympics.
Cunningham retired from competitive racing in 1940 and later opened a youth ranch, which helped over 10,000 needy and abused children.
Merce Cunningham (1919-2009) was an American dancer and choreographer who had a profound influence on modern dance. He earned some of the highest honors bestowed in the arts, including the National Medal of Arts and the MacArthur Fellowship, as well as Japan’s Praemium Imperiale, a British Laurence Olivier Award, and he was named Officier of the Légion d’honneur in France.
The Cunningham family were the heart of Happy Days. Howard and Marion Cunningham were played by Tom Bosley and Marion Ross, and their kids- their children Richie played by Ron Howard and Joanie played by Erin Moran.
Although Happy Days takes place in the 1950s, it was directly influenced by the movie American Graffiti, which takes place during the early 1960s. Ron Howard starred in both.
In AmericanGraffiti (1973), Suzanne Somers plays in a minor role as a mysterious and beautiful blonde driving in a white 1956 Ford Thunderbird. At one point the Richard Dreyfuss character, cruising with friends on the boulevards, sees her and finds her quite attractive. The Suzanne Somers character mouths to the Richard Dreyfuss character an “I love you” from within her car, which immediately catches his attention and he spends quite a bit of effort trying to find her.
In the movie production, that white 1956 Ford Thunderbird was the only main car in the movie that was rented. George Lucas and Universal Studios purchased all the other primary vehicles for the film.
George Lucas has said in interviews, since the 1977 release of Star Wars: A New Hope, that corrupt, evil and manipulative Emperor Palpatine was loosely inspired by President Richard M. Nixon.
