Read Joe Haldeman’s weird but well-written The Hemingway Hoax for an interesting theory about this.
The young Woodrow Wilson saw a captive Jefferson Davis brought in chains by Federal cavalry through his hometown of Staunton, Va. in 1865.
When he was courting his second wife, President Woodrow Wilson was reported as having “spent the evening entering Mrs. Galt,” due to an alleged misprint in The Washington Post’s Society pages.
John Phillip Souza wrote The Washington Post March to highlight an awards ceremony to an essay contest given by The Washington Post.
On “Family Guy,” Brian Griffin won a writer’s award by plagarizing a passage from The Summer of '42 as a paean to Lois.
Lois Lane and Superman both first appeared in Action Comics #1, in 1938.
Jerry Seinfeld really likes Superman. An image or toy figure of the superhero appeared in every episode of Seinfeld, and the actor/comedian later made several American Express ads featuring himself and the Man of Steel.
Seth MacFarlane, creator and producer of “Family Guy,” is a huge fan of the “Batman” TV series. When he met his idol Adam West, he used the opportunity to persuade him to become a regular on the show (“Quahog Mayor Adam West”). West, who has always enjoyed doing comedy, agreed immediately.
Julie Newmar designed and made the Catwoman costume she wore on Batman.
The episodes of “Batman” with Julie Newmar as Catwoman were heavily laced with erotic subtext (“Come brush my pussy willows, Leo!”). When the first Catwoman episode was aired in March 1966*, irate viewers flooded TV stations’ switchboards with complaints because it was being interrupted by news reports on the Gemini 8 space mission. (A dangerously malfunctioning rocket caused the flight, commanded by Neil Armstrong, to be cut short.)
*And yes, I was watching that night!
Neil Armstrong of Ohio, commander of the Apollo 11 mission and first man to walk on the Moon, had heart surgery this week.
Jack Armstrong, All American Boy was a long-running radio show about a young adventurer who traveled the world. Hanna-Barbera proposed doing an animated version of the show, but the negotiation for the rights fell through after a pilot was shot. H-B then changed the name of the character to Jonny Quest and produced that instead.
Hanna-Barbera pioneered the technique of “limited animation,” making it possible to produce regular cartoon series on a television budget. As inspiration, they took such popular TV series as “The Honeymooners” (“The Flintstones”), “You’ll Never Get Rich”(“Top Cat”) and “Dobie Gillis” (“Scooby Doo”).
“You’ll Never Get Rich” is also called “Sergeant Bilko.”
In the People’s Republic of China, you can be arrested for wearing a Sgt. Bilko t-shirt, due to the resemblance bewteen Phil Silvers (the actor who played Bilko) and the Dalai Lama. Maurice Gosfield, who played Doberman on the series, also provided the voice of Benny the Ball on “Top Cat.”
This is not true. The lone incident I’ve ever heard of occurred 25 years ago and entailed one soldier acting on his own in attempting to remove such a T-shirt from a British woman. Story here. She was not arrested.
In play: Arnold Stang, who voiced Top Cat, got his start in radio as Jughead on the Archie Andrews Show, replacing Hal Stone who was in the Army during the Korean War.
Harlan F. Stone, Republican of New Hampshire, was appointed an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court by President Calvin Coolidge, and Chief Justice of the United States by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
She was very lucky that she wasn’t arrested, and I wouldn’t want to try wearing a Bilko t-shirt in China even 25 years later. That’s called “pushing your luck.”
In play:
VP Calvin Coolidge was inaugurated by his father, a Justice of the Peace, upon hearing the news that President Warren Harding had died. The ceremony was held in the family farmhouse in Vermont. He was elected in his own right in 1924. When asked if he would stand for reelection in 1928, he replied “I do not choose to run.”
Warren Harding’s death while in office continued the trend of presidents dying in office about once every 20 years, which began with the assassination of Abraham Lincoln in 1865. Arthur in '85, McKinley in 1901, followed by Harding in '23 and then Roosevelt in '45 and Kennedy in '63.
An assassination attempt was made on Ronald Reagan in '81, but thankfully he survived and ended the dubious “streak”.
The trend of presidents elected in zero years dying in office is often referred to as “Tecumseh’s Curse,” supposedly levied by the Native American leader of the same name after his 1811 defeat at Tippecanoe, at the hands of William Henry Harrison. Harrison was the first to die in office in 1841. The only president to die in office without being elected in a “cursed” year was Zachary Taylor, who was elected in 1848 and died in 1850.
“Tippecanoe and Tyler, too!” was the campaign slogan for William Henry Harrison. Another candidate used as his slogan, “Rumpsey dumpsey, rumpsey dumpsey/Colonel Johnson killed Tecumseh.”