Scott Adams’s Dilbert strip originally was about nerd Dilbert and his dog Dogbert. Adams later introduced a lab rat called Ratbert.
Adams did a couple of strips with a fat cat fashioned after his own pet cat Freddie. He had no plans to keep the character. However, the next day his email inbox was filled with requests for “more Catbert.” Adams found this odd, as he had used the name. But, as he put it: When hundreds of readers spontaneously and unanimously name a character, it’s a good idea to keep it.
Baseball Hall-of-famer and broadcaster Ralph Kiner was born in a place that no longer esixts on the surface of the earth. Santa Rita, New Mexico, was abandoned after his family moved away, and the town site was strip-mined, and the exact location of Kiner’s birth is now several hundred feet above the surface of the earth, in thin air. As they say, you can’t go home again.
The site of the boyhood home of Babe Ruth is now the third base area of Oriole Park at Camden Yards in Baltimore. The site of the birthplace and boyhood home of cowboy singing great Roy Rogers was later the site of center field at Cincinnati’s Riverfront Stadium.
That boyhood home of Babe Ruth at what is now near third base at Oriole Park at Camden Yards was upstairs from a string of saloons owned by the Babe’s father, who was also named George Herman Ruth.
In all of MLB history there has never been another player with that same middle name, Herman.
Boyhood is a 2014 film directed by Richard Linklater, about the lives of a Texas family. The movie was filmed over a 12-year period, so it accurately captures the growth of the two children (played by Ellar Coltrane and Linklater’s daughter Lorelei) as well as the aging of the parents, played by Ethan Hawke and Patricia Arquette. (Before filming, Linklater made sure to ask Arquette if she planned on getting any plastic surgery during the next 12 years.) The movie was a critical sensation, winning several awards and earning a 100/100 rating on Metacritic, the highest ranking of any film reviewed upon its initial release.
Thanks for the correction. I double checked the si.com article I got that from and now see I misread it. It said he is the only MLB player with that last name.
The two biggest stars whose first name ends with A, which is the initial of the last name, are Patricia Arquette and Dana Andrews. The only player to ever play MLB baseball with that combination is Norichika Aoki. Very few ballplayers had names ending with A, Like Vida Blue and Vada Pinson and Ira Flagstead…
Where do you get this stuff?
Vida Blue was the first-ever pitcher to start MLB All-Star games for both leagues. Three others have since done it, and their names all start with R: Roger Clemens, Randy Johnson, and Roy Halladay.
The Blue Danube is a waltz by the Austrian composer Johann Strauss II, composed in 1866 and originally performed in February, 1867. It has been one of the most consistently popular pieces of music in the classical repertoire. Strauss adapted it into a purely orchestral version for the 1867 Paris World’s Fair, and it became a great success in this form.
Paris has held a number of World’s Fairs and similar events, all on the Champ de Mars, originally a drilling ground for the École Militaire. During the Revolution, it hosted the first “Federation Day” celebration (now Bastille Day) and the guillotining of Jean Sylvain Bailly, the first mayor of Paris. The Champ de Mars was also the site of the Festival of the Supreme Being on June 8, 1794. With a design by the painter Jacques-Louis David, a massive “Altar of the Nation” was built atop an artificial mountain and surmounted by a tree of liberty.
Pennsylvania is the only US state with a town named Mars. Texas has three towns named for planets: Mercury, Venus and Earth. Florida has three if you count Neptune Beach along with Venus and Jupiter. The only other one is Mercury, Nevada.
North Kingstown, Rhode Island has the nickname “Quahog County” after the variety of venus clams which are plentiful there. Quahog gets its Latin name Mercenaria mercenaria because its shells were used as money (“wampum”) by some Native Americans.
Scott Adams’ *Dilbert *cartoon, which was made into a short-lived animated series not unlike Family Guy (there ya go), originally had no cat at all, and a dog named Dildog. Adams quickly renamed the dog Dogbert to enhance the strip’s marketability. In both the strip and TV show, Dogbert ended up the ruler of Elbonia, although he quickly relinquished the title. He has also run for President of the United States on at least two occasions as a third-party candidate, apparently losing.
Paul Leonard, lieutenant governor of Ohio from 1987-1991, was previously mayor of Dayton. A lawyer, he founded the Center for Animal Law and Advocacy, which argues for harsher penalties for those who mistreat animals.
The 1971 movie Fiddler on the Roof won three Academy Awards: Best Song Score Adaptation (John Williams), Best Cinematography (Oswald Morris), and Best Sound (Gordon McCallum & David Hildyard).It was nominated Best Picture, Best Actor for Chaim Topol as Tevye, and Best Supporting Actor for Leonard Frey as Motel the Tailor.
One if the first gossip columnists was Jimmy Fidler, who went on the air with Hollywood gossip on NBC radio in 1933. He was still on the air in the 1960s.
The National Broadcasting Company, a subsidiary of Radio Corporation of America (RCA), had two networks before a antitrust-forced divestiture in 1945. The NBC Red Network continued as NBC, while the Blue Network became the American Broadcasting Company (ABC).
