One of the more popular animated children’s television series was The Flintstones, cleverly designed so that Adults could enjoy it also. The famous opening Theme song (and animation) “Meet the Flintstones” didnt start until until season three. At one time, The Flintstones was the longest-running prime-time animation cartoon weekly serie until the Simpsons beat them.
Depending on whom you ask, The Flintstones is either an homage to, or a direct ripoff of, The Honeymooners. Fred and Barney are note for note copies of Ralph and Ed, and are always getting themselves into cockamamie shenanigans. Also, Wilma and Betty are remarkably similar to their counterparts. Hannah and Barbera didn’t deny it, and Jackie Gleason considered suing. He thought better of it, however, after deciding he didn’t want to be the guy who got Fred Flintstone taken off the air.
Despite the fact that production of new episodes of The Flintstones ended in 1966, the show and its characters have endured in the public consciousness.
In particular, two licensed consumer products, based on the cartoon and its characters, remain popular today: Flintstones Chewable Vitamins (a multivitamin supplement for children), and Pebbles breakfast cereal.
Until 1995, Miles Laboratories, the maker of the Flintstones vitamins, did not include Betty Rubble, and instead featured Fred, Barney, Wilma, Dino, and Fred’s car. The exclusion of Betty had to do with the fact that her thin waist meant that vitamins molded after her would easily snap in half. Betty’s absence led to a Florida rock band picking the most College Radio band name of all time: Betty’s Not a Vitamin. This injustice was made right following a nationwide voting campaign that resulted in Fred’s car being replaced with Betty, presumably in a mold that doesn’t break easily.
Six warships named USS Florida have served in the United States Navy over the years. The current one, an Ohio-class nuclear submarine commissioned in 1983, started as a Trident ballistic missile sub but was refitted in 2003-2006 to carry cruise missiles instead.
Trident Chewing Gum’s slogan, “Four out of Five Dentists…” was such a popular catch-phrase that it has spawned several jokes and memes far beyond the world of dentistry and chewing gum. The basis of the original study had nothing to do with Trident, but the premise that chewing gum promotes good dental hygiene, as it stimulates the mouth’s saliva glands to act as a natural buffer against destructive germs.
An Egyptian, named as Hesi-Re, seems to be the most ancient dentist who is recorded. Hesi-Re lived around 3000BC, and his Title was title was Wer-ibeḥsenjw, meaning “Great one of the ivory cutters” aka dentists . The wealthy had their servants clean their teeth for them. “Dentists” created herbal remedies for tooth ache and gum issues.
Vincent Van Gogh’s 1887 painting Poppy Flowers was twice stolen from an Egyptian museum, in 1977 and 2010. The second time it was stolen, it wasn’t recovered, and its whereabouts are still unknown.
For more: Poppy Flowers - Wikipedia
On October 19, 2025, thieves stole eight pieces of French Crown Jewels valued at roughly €88 million from the Louvre Museum in Paris. Four masked individuals used a truck-mounted furniture lift, broke into the Galerie d’Apollon in broad daylight, smashed display cases, and escaped on scooters in under eight minutes.
Per Wiki, the Louvre Museum “is housed in the Louvre Palace, originally built in the late 12th to 13th century under Philip II. Remnants of the Medieval Louvre fortress are visible in the basement of the museum. Due to urban expansion, the fortress eventually lost its defensive function, and in 1546 Francis I converted it into the primary residence of the French kings.”
You may have heard that the Mona Lisa was considered a nothingburger painting before it was stolen and then returned, after which it became a sensation with the public. That’s only partially true. The general public had no particular affection for it, and indeed it wasn’t even the most popular piece in its own gallery. But experts and art critics of the time considered it a masterpiece, a shining example of High Renaissance teqnique.
The authors of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles used the names of famous High Renaissance artists to name their four creations- Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael and of course Michelangelo. The creators- Eastman and Laird, meant the comic to a parody, and it was a small edition of about 3000, printed by their new Comics company- Mirage Studios.
Donatella Versace is an Italian fashion designer and businesswoman. She is the sister of Gianni Versace, who founded the Versace fashion company in 1978, and collaborated with her brother on the brand’s design and fashion collections.
After Gianni was murdered in 1997, Donatella became Versace’s creative director, a role she held until 2025, when she became its Brand Ambassador.
The first person to hold the official rank of Ambassador in the United States was Thomas Bayard, who was appointed as Ambassador to Great Britain on March 30, 1893. Previously, top-ranking diplomats to foreign countries held the rank of Minister.
The second person to hold this rank was James Eustis, appointed as Ambassador to France on April 18, 1893.
The fledgling USA avoided the title of Ambassador, thinking it smacked of Royalties. Instead they used “Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary”. John Adams was the first such to Great Britain, being appointed in 1785. Benjamin Franklin was famous in being in that role to France in December 1776, being a part of getting France to support America in the War of Independence.
Howard da Silva was an American actor, who had a long career in both theater and film, often playing historical figures.
Late in his career, he became associated with the role of Benjamin Franklin: he played Franklin in the original Broadway cast of the musical 1776 in 1969, and in the movie adaptation of the musical in 1972; he later appeared as Franklin in a film documentary made for showing at Franklin’s home in Philadelphia, and in television ads for Consolidated Edison.
While The Royal Guardsmen are best known for their 1966 hit “Snoopy vs the Red Baron”, the group managed to release nine albums over a 40-year period. All of their albums play off the “Snoopy” and “Red Baron” motifs, with the exception of a collection packaged under the title Anthology, released in 1995, which includes two singles recorded in 1969 that have no apparent connection to the band’s oeuvre: “Magic Window” (b/w “Mother, Where’s Your Daughter?”), and “The Smallest Astronaut” (b/w “Quality Woman”).
Disregard
The Ames Window or Ames Trapezoid is an optical illusion discovered by Adelbert Ames, Jr. in 1947. It is an image of a trapezoidal window frame on a piece of cardboard suspended by a string.
The cardboard has the same image on both sides. When the cardboard rotates, the illusion is that it is misperceived to oscillate instead of rotate continuously.