Kermit the Frog is probably the best-known of Jim Henson’s Muppets. The character was originated in 1955 by Henson on his local television show called Sam and Friends, which aired on a Washington, D.C. television station.
Walt Disney’s 1967 animated adaptation of Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book was the final film to be produced by Disney himself, who had died from lung cancer during the film’s production.
Edit: in 1989, Jim Henson began discussing a merger of his company with Disney; after Henson’s sudden death in 1990, that proposed merger was cancelled.
Avenue Q has been described as “a post-modern and Generation X-themed takeoff on Sesame Street.”
Ed Christie, the manager at The Muppet Workshop in New York at the time, commented:
“After the workshop (pre-Broadway) performances of Avenue Q, the Henson company held a meeting with Jeff Marx and Bobby Lopez and Rick Lyon. The Henson reps tried to get a handle on the intentions of the show and tried to discourage the Avenue Q team from using their “Muppety” designs - so close to the copyrighted designs that they (Henson) had developed over the past 35 years (and Mr. Lyon was exposed to, as he was one of their puppeteers). The Avenue Q group refused to back down - claiming that they were protected under the parody laws (like Saturday Night Live is). Lopez, Marx and Lyon explained that the show would not be successful if the characters did not resemble the characters they were spoofing. Lawyers for Henson and Sesame Workshop were able to come to an agreement with the Avenue Q group. Rick Lyon built the characters as he wished and Avenue Q made it to Broadway.”
The original Avenue Q in Brooklyn, New York, was renamed Quentin Road in honor of Quentin Roosevelt, son of the President and Mrs. Edith Roosevelt. 2nd Lt. Roosevelt was killed on July 14, 1918 while serving as a US Army Air Service pilot in World War I.
The District of Columbia does not have a J Street. K Street is one block north of I Street. When Pierre L’Enfant laid out the plan for the city of Washington, I and J were not considered separate letters.
The highest point (410 feet above sea level) in the District of Columbia is at Fort Reno Park in the neighborhood of Tenleytown. This was also the location of the only Civil War battle to take place in the District of Columbia, which was the Battle of Fort Stevens.
President Abraham Lincoln briefly came under Confederate fire during the 1864 Battle of Fort Stevens, and was brusquely told by an officer - who may not have recognized him - to get down before he was shot. Legend has it that the officer was a young Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., a future U.S. Supreme Court justice but at the time a Massachusetts infantry officer, but that has never been confirmed.
Oliver! was the last G-rated film to receive an Academy Award for Best Picture, in 1969. It was the last movie musical to win the award until Chicago thirty-four years later.
There have been four warships named USS *Chicago *to serve in the United States Navy, the most recent of which is a Los Angeles-class nuclear fast attack submarine commissioned in 1986 and still in active service. The ship’s seal includes the city flag’s distinctive four red stars and two light-blue stripes.
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Judy Chicago’s most well known work is The Dinner Party, which is permanently installed in the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum. The Dinner Party celebrates the accomplishments of women throughout history and is widely regarded as the first epic feminist artwork. Other notable art projects by Chicago include International Honor Quilt, The Birth Project, Powerplay, and* The Holocaust Project*.
She is not a neighbor of Robert Indiana, creator of the “LOVE” print.
The rock group Chicago was originally called Chicago Transit Authority, or CTA. Their first album, also called Chicago Transit Authority, was a double album released in 1969 that made it as high as #17 on the charts. They were originally scheduled to play at Woodstock later that summer, but their promoter, Bill Graham, booked them on a different show that weekend. Graham replaced them at Woodstock with another up-and-coming band that he was promoting by the name of Santana. Santana’s performance at Woodstock is considered their breakthrough gig.
After the release of the first album, the band’s name was shortened to Chicago to avoid legal action being threatened by the actual Chicago Transit Authority.
According to a biographical video recorded for the 1992 Democratic National Convention, proud father Bill Clinton placed his newborn daughter Chelsea on a bed and bragged to his wife Hillary that she wouldn’t roll off because she understood gravity even at such a young age. Not long afterwards, Chelsea rolled off the bed but was unhurt.
“Chelsea Dagger,” a 2006 song by Scottish rock band The Fratellis, is an ode to a burlesque dancer. Singer Jon Fratelli wrote the song in homage to his wife, an actual burlesque dancer, from whom he also borrowed her stage name (a play on “Britney Spears”) for the song’s title.
The song became an anthem for several football/soccer teams, including Celtic and (of course) Chelsea, as well as for the Chicago Blackhawks hockey team.
When Andy Goram was the star goalkeeper for Glasgow’s other team, Rangers, the team’s supporters would sing “One Andy Goram! There’s only one Andy Goram!” to the tune of “Guantamera”. After he was diagnosed with a mild case of schizophrenia, the sensitive, supportive Rangers fans changed the song to “Two Andy Gorams! There’s only two Andy Gorams!”
Oh, man…that’s terrible, but it made me laugh!
In play: Created in 1835 following a call-to-arms by Stephen F. Austin, the Texas Ranger Division is a statewide law enforcement agency with jurisdiction throughout the state of Texas. The unit was dissolved by the federal authorities during the post–Civil War Reconstruction Era, but was later reformed. Today, it fulfills the role of the state’s bureau of investigation.
In response to Iowa Representative Steve King’s stupid remarks about abortion, rape and incest, novelist Stephen King posted on his Facebook account:
“Let’s get 1 thing straight. I’m not THAT Steve King.”
Fred Grandy - Gopher from the TV show Love Boat - was a Representative from Iowa for eight years. He later ran for Governor but lost.
Iowa currently has four U.S. Representatives in the House. That is actually the fewest it’s ever had. It dropped to 6 from 7 in 2012, and even when it first joined the Union had eight. It has been as high as 13.
Iowa’s population is not dropping; in fact, since joining the Union during the Civil War, it’s had a few short dips but has never dropped for a prolonged period of time. It just hasn’t grown relative to the USA for a long time.
In the 2016 Iowa Democratic caucuses, operatives for the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign had a special software program to allocate supporters of Martin O’Malley and other less-well-known candidates in the second and subsequent rounds of voting in such a way as to help Bernie Sanders’s campaign the least.
Since 1972, the Iowa caucuses have had a 43% success rate at predicting which Democrat, and a 50% success rate at predicting which Republican will go on to win the nomination of their political party for president at that party’s national convention.