Christopher Columbus never set foot on the mainland of North America.
American director Chris Columbus is known for directing Gremlins, The Goonies, the first two Home Alone films, Mrs. Doubtfire, Bicentennial Man, the first three Harry Potter films and the two Night at the Museum films, among many other credits.
In Isaac Asimov’s short story The Bicentennial Man (far better than the movie), the World Court declares at the end of the robot Andrew’s quest to become human and thus free, “Liberty should never be denied to any being capable of asking for it.”
In Piers Anthonthy’s first Xanth novel, the Manticore asks Good Magician Humfrey if he has a soul. The Manticore is willing to server Humfrey for a year in order to obtain the answer. Humfrey replies that if a creature wonders if he has a soul, then he has a soul.
ETA: darnit, I screwed that up. Meant to say “being” not “creature” to tie into Elendil’s Heir’s post. Please read accordingly.
Emerson, Lake, and Palmer formed Manticore Records as their own record label (many groups of the time did so), and also released albums from groups like Premiata Forneria Marconi, Peter Sinfield, and Little Richard.
The rock band Tesla entitled one of their most popular albums The Great Radio Controversy, after seeing that heading in an encyclopedia entry discussing whether Guglielmo Marconi or Nikola Tesla was the true creator of radio.
The radio operators aboard RMS Titanic on that fateful April 1912 voyage were actually employees of the Marconi International Marine Communication Co., not of the White Star Line.
Guglielmo Marconi shared the 1909 Nobel Prize in Physics with Karl Braun for their work in the wireless radio.
Carl August Braun (1927-2010) left Colgate University in 1947 for the Basketball Association of America where he became one of the best shooting guards during the 1940s and 1950s. A native of Brooklyn, Braun began his professional career with the New York Knicks (1947-1950, 1952-1961) and finished his career with the Boston Celtics (1961-62). With the Knicks, he was named to two All-BAA (1948) or All-NBA (1954) Second Teams and was selected for 5 NBA All-Star Games from 1953-1957. In 1962, Carl helped the star-studded Boston Celtics capture the NBA Finals Championship over the Los Angeles Lakers. Carl Braun ended his career with 10,625 points, 2,122 total rebounds and 2,892 assists.
Disco diva Donna Summer named her second daughter Brooklyn after her husband Bruce Sudano’s old vocal group, the Brooklyn Dreams, with whom she recorded the hit “Heaven Knows.”
Singer Johnny Maestro was a member of several 50s rock group, most notably the Crests. In the 60s, he was the singer for the Brooklyn Bridge, who had a #3 hit in the Jim Webb song, “The Worst that Could Happen.”
The Crests’ hit Sixteen Candles was covered by the Stray Cats for the soundtrack of the film that shares its title with the song.
Humans and cats have identical regions in the brain responsible for emotion.
There are 12 pairs of cranial nerves that emerge directly from the brain.
I: Olfactory
II: Optic
III: Oculomotor
IV: Trochlear
V: Trigeminal
VI: Abducens
VII: Facial
VIII: Auditory (vestibulocochlear)
IX: Glossopharyngeal
X: Vagus
XI: Spinal Accessory
XII: Hypoglossal
Terry Gilliam’s “12 Monkeys” is based loosely upon “La jetée”, a short, black and white film composed almost entirely of still photographs.
Terry Gilliam played Cardinal Fang in Monty Python’s Flying Circus’s “Spanish Inquisition” sketch. He had no lines, as I recall.
Lyrics to The Inquisition :
The Inquistion, let’s begin
The Inquistion, look out sin
We have a mission to convert the Jews (Jew ja Jew ja Jew ja Jews)
We’re gonna teach them wrong from right
We’re gonna help them see the light
And make an offer that they can’t refuse (that the Jews just can’t
refuse)
Confess (confess, confess)
Don’t be boring
Say yes (say yes, say yes)
Don’t be dull
A fact
you’re ignoring:
it’s better to lose your skullcap than your skull
The Inquistion, what a show
The Inquistion, here we go
We know you’re wishing
That we’d go away
But the Inquistion’s here and it’s here to stay
The Inquistion, oh boy
The Inquistion, what a joy
The Inquistion, oy oy
I was sitting in a temple
I was minding my own business
I was listening to a lovely Hebrew mass
Then these papus persons plunge in, and they throw me in a
dungeon, and they shove a red hot poker up my ass
Is that considerate?
Is that polite?
And not a tube of Preparation H in sight
I’m sitting, plicking chickens and I’m looking through the pickings
and suddenly these guys bring down my balls
I didn’t even know them and they grabbed me by the scrotum and
they started playing ping pong with my balls
Oy, the agony
Ooh, the shame
To make my privates public for a game
The Inquistion, what a show
The Inquistion, here we go
We know you’re wishing
That we’d go away
But the Inquistion’s here and it’s here to -
- Hey, Torquemada, whaddaya say?
I just got back from the auto-da-fé
Auto-da-fé, what’s an auto-da-fé?
It’s what you oughtn’t to do but you do anyway
Skit skat voodely vat tootin de day
Will you convert?
No, no, no, no
Will you confess?
No, no, no, no
Will you revert?
No, no, no, no
Will you say yes?
No, no, no, no
Now I ask in a nice way, I said pretty please, I bent their ears,
now I’ll work on their knees!
Hey, Torquemada, walk this way
We got a little game that you might wanna play
So pull that handle, try your luck
Who knows, Torq, you might win a buck!
Alright!
Put it in the car (in the car x2)
How we doing? Any converts today?
Not a one, nay, nay, nay
We’ve flattened their fingers
We branded their buns
Nothing is working
Send in the nuns!
The Inquistion, what a show
The Inquistion, here we go
We know you’re wishing
That we’d go away
So, c’mon you Moslems and you Jews
We got big news for all of yous
You better change your point of views today
'Cause the Inquistion’s here and it’s here to stay
That song was in Mel Brooks’s History of the World, Part I, released in 1981. There has never been a Part II.
Mel Brooks is a member of the short list of entertainers with the distinction of having won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony award.