Historian and baseball fan Doris Kearns Goodwin was the first female journalist to be allowed into the Boston Red Sox locker room.
Madalyn Kahn and Mary Woronov co-starred as exotic dancers in the oriignal Broadway production of David Rabe’s’s play In the Boom Boom Room.
Tick…Tick…Boom! was an autobiographical musical written by the late Jonathan Larson before his mega-hit RENT but not produced until years after.
Jim Brown played the black sheriff of a rural Southern county in the 1970 film …tick…tick…tick…, which also featured Frederic March as a town mayor.
In addition to being a star running back (and placekicker!) at Syracuse University, Jim Brown also lettered in track, was among the leading scorers on the basketball team as a sophomore and junior, and was named an All-American in lacrosse in his senior year (in fact, he is in the Lacrosse Hall of Fame).
The U.S. Lacrosse Hall of Fame is in Baltimore, adjoining the campus of Johns Hopkins University.
One of the screenwriting and acting professors at Johns Hopkins University is John Astin, an alumni of JHU best known for playing Gomez Addams, Buddy on Night Court, and being the father of Sean and Mackenzie Astin.
In the Sixties, Dick Tracy appeared in a short-lived TV cartoon series that featured such stereotypical ethnic detectives as Mexican cop Go-Go Gomez, Irish cop Heap O’Calorie, Japanese cop Joe Jitsu, and English bulldog cop Hemlock Holmes.
When The Simpsons were introduced as animated sequences in The Tracy Ullman Show, they alternated with Dr. N!Godatu, an animated sequence created by National Lampoon cartoonist MK Brown
National Lampoon’s January 1973 “If You Dont Buy This Magazine We’ll Shoot This Dog” cover was ranked #7 on the American Society of Magazine Editors’ 2005 poll of the top 40 magazine covers of the previous 40 years.
While the song The Cover of The Rolling Stone was a top ten hit for Dr Hook & The Medicine Show in the US, in was not allowed to play in the UK because of BBC Radio’s stance on playing songs deemed as advertisements. It was “altered” to fit radio guidelines by being re-titled The Cover of The Radio Times and subbing the phrase “Radio Times” for “Rolling Stone” in the chorus. BBC Radio did not object, since they owned The Radio Times magazine.
Papa Was a Rolling Stone was a 1972 number 1 hit for The Temptations; the group is still around, but Otis Williams is the only current member who was with the group when they sang that song.
Otis Redding’s famous song (Sittin’ on) The Dock of the Bay was recorded a mere three days before his death in a plane crash. It went on to be the first posthumous number one single in US history.
The Otis Elevator Company was the only non-French firm to do work on the Eiffel Tower. French companies were supposed to do it all, but none could design the second stage elevator (there are three on the tower to accommodate its shape). French firms, which used piston elevators, could not design one to handle the curve of the second stage; Otis, which used a cable, was able to do so – though they had to prove to the French that the design was safe. Even so, the elevator was not operational until several weeks after the tower opened.
Jim Otis of the St. Louis Cardinals was the last Caucasian to lead the NFC in rushing. And Mark Van Eeghen of the Raiders was the last white AFC rushing champ.
The Arizona Cardinals (formerly known as the Phoenix Cardinals, St. Louis Cardinals, and Chicago Cardinals) are the oldest team in the NFL, having been founded in 1898 (and, thus, predating the NFL itself by 22 years).
When a new Pope is needed, the College of Cardinals gathers in the Sistine Chapel to vote. When white smoke is seen rising from the chapel’s chimney, a new Pope has been elected.
The Pope Motor Car Company, one of the leading manufacturers of the “brass era”, produced the Pope-Toledo, Pope-Hartford, Pope-Tribune, and Pope-Waverley models.
Mr. Waverly, the boss at the United Network Command for Law Enforcement, was played by Leo G. Carroll, best known for his role as Cosmo Topper in the TV series and in films like Tarantula and Strangers on a Train.
Drummer Nicholas “Topper” Headon was fired by the Clash in 1982, due to his heavy drug use.