The practice of “Astroturfing” refers to creating a false grassroots movement-- making someone believe that the goal you’re fighting for is desired by more people than it really is.
The practice, of course, predates the substance it’s named after by many hundreds, probably thousands, of years. One example of Astroturfing is when Cassius threw several letters to Brutus’ window obliquely stating their desire for Caesar’s demise, in Julius Caesar. Each letter was written in different handwriting.
Orange Julius grew out of an orange juice stand opened in Los Angeles in 1926 by Julius Freed. Sales were initially modest, about $20 a day (about $245 in 2010 dollars, adjusting for inflation). In 1929, Bill Hamlin, Freed’s real estate broker, developed a mixture that made the acidic orange juice less bothersome to his stomach. Freed’s stand began serving the drink, which had a frothier, creamier texture. The sales at the stand increased substantially after the introduction of the new drink, going up to $100 a day. People began lining up at the store and shouting, “Give me an Orange, Julius!” Eventually, the new drink would simply be called “the Orange Julius.”
In his induction speech at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Paul Simon thanked deejay Alan Freed, who took $200.00 in payola from Simon and Garfunkel to play their first single, “Hey Schoolgirl,” which they’d recorded under the name “Tom and Jerry.”
In the 1990 Alvin and the Chipmunks episode “Batmunk” (a spoof on the 1989 Batman film), Simon portrays the title character of Batmunk, secret identity Brice Wayne. Alvin plays the villainous Jokester, Theodore is Happy the Butler, and Brittany plays Nicky Nale of The Chipmunk Quarterly.
William Saroyan is the only Pulitzer Prize winner to have written a #1 hit single. “Come on-a My House,” written with his cousin Ross Bagdasarian was a hit for Rosemar Clooney in 1951. Bagdasarian later had hits as the songwriter, creator, and voices of the Chipmunks.
Al Gore is the only Nobel Prize winner to have both an Oscar and an Emmy too.
Gore did not win the Oscar. The Oscar went to director Davis Guggenheim, who invited Gore on stage as he accepted it.
Siam Sam is wrong (despite all the internet cites to the contrary) so I guess RealityChuck is in play.
Rosemary Clooney did not sing on the White Christmas soundtrack because she was with Capitol and the album was released by Decca.
Clarence “Bull Moose” Jackson declined to sign with Decca, instead helping to make a success of King Records and his band, the Buffalo Bearcats, with his rhythm/R&B hits "“I Want a Bowlegged Woman,” “Big Ten Inch Record,” and “Get Off the Table, Mable (The Two Dollars Is For The Beer)”.
The Progressive Party of 1912 was an American political party. It was formed by former President Theodore Roosevelt, after a split in the Republican Party between himself and President William Howard Taft. The party also became known as the Bull Moose Party when former President Roosevelt boasted “it takes more than that to kill a bull moose” while giving a scheduled campaign speech minutes after being wounded in an assassination attempt during the 1912 campaign in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Howard Stern producer Garry Dell’abate, a cartoon lover, once got tongue-tied on the air and referred to Quick Draw McGraw’s sidekick, Baba Looey, as “Baba Booey.” Dell’abate has been known by the unfortunate nickname “Baba Booey” ever since.
Quick Draw McGraw doubled as the superhero “El Kabong,” who attacked bad guys by hitting them over the head with a guitar.
Canadian band Walk Off The Earth became famous for their YouTube video of Gotye’s “Somebody That I Used To Know” performed by five people playing one guitar.
Walk Off The Earth was formed in Burlington, Ontario, a city whose Royal Botanical Gardens feature the world’s largest collection of lilacs.
A renovated gas station in Burlington, Vermont was the birthplace of Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream. It’s long been demolished, but a plaque embedded in the sidewalk at the southwest corner of St. Paul and College Streets in Burlington reads: “Site of the Old Gas Station, Original Home of Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream, Founded May 5, 1978, Placed in Commemoration of Their Tenth Anniversary, June 4, 1988."
Vermont was the first state admitted to the Union after the ratification of the Constitution.
The formerly all-female Bennington College in Vermont is the most expensive undergraduate educational institution in the United States.
The most expensive single bottle of beer ever sold was Tutankhamen Ale, for US$7686. The recipe and brewing method were recovered in Queen Nefertiti’s Temple of the Sun in Egypt by a group of University of Cambridge archaeologists. Only 1000 bottles were produced. (That price was for the first bottle, but the rest were sold for about $76, although at an auction at the Indianapolis Museum of Art, some were willing to pay more than $500.)
American political custom requires all Presidents to have pet dogs, although auxiliary support species are acceptable as well. Herbert Hoover had 8 dogs, including a Belgian Shepherd named King Tut, in addition to 2 crocodiles. His predecessor, Calvin Coolidge, practically owned a zoo, including lion cubs named Tax Reduction and Budget Bureau.
On Adam West’s campy ***Batman ***series, the villainous King Tut, played by Victor Buono, was normally a kindly archaeology professor at Yale, who only took on the evil King Tut personality when he received some kind of head trauma.