Coney Island, in its heyday around 1906, was home to three amusement parks: Steeplechase Park, Luna Park, and Dreamland. Dreamland had the shortest existance; it opened in 1904 and burned down in 1911. Luna Park only survived until WWII, while Steeplechase – the oldest of the three – finally gave up the ghost in 1964. Attempts have been made to try to reestablish them, but have had limited success.
Luna Park, and the total of 44 amusement parks in the pioneering chain that had that name, got it from their origins showing Georges Melies’ early movie “Une Voyage dans la Lune”, usually in pirated form. The first was in the 1901 Pan American Exposition in Buffalo. The Luna Parks in Pittsburgh and Cleveland were the first to be electrically lit.
The USS Pittsburgh and Cleveland were U.S. Navy cruisers which both served in the Pacific during World War II.
U. of Arizona product Cleveland Pittsburgh Crosby played one season, 1982, as a defensive end for the Baltimore Colts. That was far less accomplished than the career of Georgia product Cleveland Gary, also named for multiple Rust Belt cities, who led the NFL in rushing touchdowns in 1990 for the Los Angeles Rams.
Gary, Indiana, not far from Chicago, Illinois, was the birthplace and childhood home of singer/entertainer Michael Jackson. The city’s attempts to market itself as such have met with little success over the years.
In “The Music Man”, Winthrop (played by an adorable little Ronnie Howard in the movie version) sings “Gary, Indiana”, about the city in which Prof. Harold Hill got his music degree. Winthrop also lisps/sprays the song “Wells Fargo Wagon” in anticipation of the River City Boys Band’s instruments and uniforms arriving.
Joe Hill, author of Heart Shaped Box, Horns and other thrillers, is the son of Stephen King. His birth name is Joseph Hillstrom King; he took his pen name from the martyred labor leader so that he would not be seen as riding on his famous father’s coattails.
The song “I Dreamed I Saw Joe Hill Last Night”, about the executed (and possibly railroaded) Wobblies leader, was most notably recorded by Pete Seeger, Paul Robeson, and Joan Baez. It has a theme similar to Henry Fonda’s farewell address in the movie “The Grapes of Wrath”.
In addition to being a renowned actor and singer, Paul Robeson was a two-time all-America football player at Rutgers and was considered one of the greatest football players of his era.
Ralph Ellison, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Roy Lichtenstein, and sculptor George Segal all served as members of the Rutgers faculty.
At the end of Gilbert and Sullivan’s HMS Pinafore, lowly sailor Ralph Rackstraw switches places with Captain Corcoran, and becomes commander of the ship.
One of James T. Kirk’s first assignments as a young Starfleet officer, well before he became captain of the USS Enterprise, was to the USS Farragut, which was attacked by a vampiric space cloud creature. Kirk blamed himself for not firing on the creature fast enough, but much later learned that it would have made no difference.
In What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, Leonardo DiCaprio plays the autistic brother of Gilbert Grape.
The first non-alcoholic grape juice was developed and marketed by Charles Welch in 1893, as the Welch’s Grape Juice brand. Prior to that – and pasteurization – it wasn’t possible to keep grape juice from fermenting.
Bob Welch of the Oakland A’s won 27 games in 1990. No Major League Baseball pitcher has matched that mark since.
Gene Rayburn (born Eugene Rubessa), the host of the popular Match Game show, picked his stage name by pointing randomly at a name in the phone book.
Country/gospel quartet The Statler Brothers, only two of whom are brothers (not named Statler), picked their collective moniker based on the brand name of a box of tissues in a hotel room in which they were staying while on tour.
The two old geezers in the balcony, who had pithy comments on the performers on “The Muppet Show”, were named Statler and Waldorf after two eminent New York City hotels.
Remember the two crotchety old men that sat up in the balcony on the Muppet Show? Their names were Statler and Waldorf. These fellas were named after NYC hotels, rather than tissues.
The Muppets starred not only in The Muppet Show, but twenty-two other television series, including Sesame Street and Fraggle Rock, the latter of which, like The Muppet Show, starred only muppets. They also made twelve movies, not all of which were theatrical releases, and have appeared in many others, such as Labrynth.
ETA: I guess that Muppets didn’t actually make the movies, but the movies revolved around muppet characters.