Although the University of Southern California’s football mascot today is a white horse named Traveler, his predecessor was a car-chasing dog named George Tirebiter. Long gone today, George is memorialized by a life-size bronze sculpture on the USC campus.
The 1925 diphtheria epidemic in Nome, Alaska was cured by several sled dog teams delivering serum from Anchorage over 1,000 miles away. A statue of Balto, Gunnar Kaasen’s lead dog, remains in NYC’s Central Park. Balto was stuffed by a taxidermist and is on display at the Cleveland History Museum.
A true hero of that 1925 run is Togo, the lead dog for Leonhard Seppala.
The Metal Men were a DC superhero team of five robots created by Dr. Will Magnus, each of which had the characteristics of an element: Gold, Mercury, Lead, Iron, Tin, and Platinum (the only female of the group, called “Tina” for short).
In the hit single “She Blinded Me With Science,” Thomas Dolby imitated Magnus Pyke, a zany biologist who often talked about matters scientific on BBC television programs.
Pyke himself appeared in the video for the song.
Lt. Cmdr. Data was described as the USS Enterprise, NCC-1701-D’s Science Officer in only one episode.
Officer Barbrady is the primary law enforcer in the city of South Park, Colorado.
Colorado is the only US state to turn down the Olympics. In 1976, the Winter Olympics were planned to be held in Denver. 62% of state voters choose at almost the last minute voted not to host them due to the cost, pollution and population boom they would have on the state and Denver.
After Denver turned down the 1976 Winter Olympics, the games were awarded to Whistler, British Columbia, Canada, which also turned down hosting duties after a change in government following elections. Salt Lake City, Utah offered to take Denver’s place in hosting the Games for the U.S., but the IOC declined and ultimately gave them to Innsbruck, Austria for the second time.
Utah is the site of the nation’s first department store, Zions Cooperative Mercantile Institution, established in 1868 and operatiing today as ZCMI.
In Utah, completion of the world’s first transcontinental railroad was celebrated at Promontory where the Central Pacific and Union Pacific Railroads met on May 10, 1869. It is now known as Golden Spike National Historic Site.
There are four railroads in the board game Monopoly: B&O, Reading, Short Line and Pennsylvania. Though most of the game’s spaces were based on Atlantic City, B&O did not serve Atlantic City.
Atlantic City, New Jersey has the longest boardwalk in the world.
Actor Bruce Willis sang "Under the Boardwalk", and it reached #2 on the charts in the United Kingdom.
Bruce Willis starred in the 1997 sci-fi action comedy The Fifth Element alongside Milla Jovovich, Gary Oldman and Chris Tucker. Still visually stunning to this day, it was commonly used in retail Blu-ray displays to show off the picture quality.
One of the first movies for the now-36 year old Russian actress Milla Jovovich was 1991’s Return to the Blue Lagoon, the sequel to The Blue Lagoon. Jovovich was often called by press the “Slavic Brooke Shields”.
Brooke Shields was only 14 years old when she filmed The Blue Lagoon; she had to testify in front of Congress that older body doubles were used for her nude scenes. (And when it was her, she had her hair glued down to her breasts.)
The Blue Lagoon was filmed on location in Fiji.
In Red Dwarf, Dave Lister’s dream is to retire to Fiji, despite the fact that the island is now covered with three feet of water. This is the origin of the second verse of the theme song:
“I want to lie shipwrecked and comatose
Drinking fresh mango juice
Goldfish shoals* nibblng at me toes
Fun, fun, fun in the sun, sun, sun.”
*“schools” to Americans.
Goldfish crackers were introduced in the U.S. by Pepperidge Farm in 1962. The snack mascot’s name is Finn.
An ill-timed erection caused John "Bluto "Blutarsky to fall off a ladder while watching Mandy Pepperidge disrobe, in National Lampoon’s Animal House.