From 1968 to 2005, John Simon was the theater critic for New York magazine.
The first theatre in London was called The Theatre.
The Decca record company had a dispute where albums recorded in England could not be released using the Decca label in the US. When the English Invasion came along, Decca US released albums recorded in the UK under the London Records label. The early records by the Rolling Stones and Moody Blues were released in the US under London Records.
In geometry, a dodecahedron (Greek δωδεκάεδρον, from δώδεκα, dōdeka “twelve” + ἕδρα hédra “base”, “seat” or “face”) is any polyhedron with twelve flat faces, but usually a regular dodecahedron is meant: a Platonic solid. It is composed of 12 regular pentagonal faces, with three meeting at each vertex, and is represented by the Schläfli symbol. It has 20 vertices, 30 edges and 160 diagonals. Its dual polyhedron is the icosahedron, with Schläfli symbol.
A large number of other (nonregular) polyhedra also have twelve faces, most notably the topologically identical pyritohedron with tetrahedral symmetry, and the rhombic dodecahedron with octahedral symmetry.
The Greek mathematician Euclid of Alexandria, fl. 300 BC, is considered the “Father of Geometry.”
H.P. Lovecraft wrote that structures on the sunken island of R’yleh, where the evil alien god Cthulhu forever dreams, are built according to non-Euclidean geometry.
H.P. sauce depicts the Houses of Parliament on its label, but is not officially endorsed by Parliament. However, it was Prime Minister Wilson’s favourite sauce.
Woodrow Wilson was the only US president with a doctorate. I believe that fact has been played in this thread before, but what makes the achievement extra special is that he suffered from dyslexia as a child, making him a slow student.
Ronald Reagan made 4 films for Warner as Lt. “Brass” Bancroft, a China Clipper pilot turned undercover Secret Service agent. The second, “Code of the Secret Service”, was rated by Reagan as the worst film he ever made (I’ve seen it and wouldn’t argue). Nevertheless, it inspired a boy named Jerry Parr to aim for a career as a Secret Service agent, a choice which paid off when he was one of the detail who saved then-President Reagan from John Hinckley.
A Rolex worn by George Lazenby in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969) drew a bid of US$40,373 at Christie’s in London in 2003.
The Bond producers wanted to sign Lazenby to a multi-film contract (IIRC, six or seven films), but his agent assured him that “secret agent films are on the way out” and got him to back out after just the one.
Ironically, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service has consistently ranked among fans as one of the better Bond films. (Including this fan.)
Family legend among Ward Bond’s – Bert the cop in It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) – family has it that Bond was a roommate at USC with John Wayne, who convinced him to go into acting. Whether that was true or not, they apparently were best friends, and one of their favorite activities in their youth was to go to bars, get drunk and start fights.
Crusader Rabbit was the first animated series produced specifically for television, first aired in 1950 and using limited animation to keep down costs. It was created by animator Alex Anderson and producer Jay Ward. Ward was later the producer and guiding light behind Rocky and Bullwinkle and all its spinoffs.
Burt Ward, best known as playing Robin in the TV series “Batman and Robin”, now runs “Gentle Giants Rescue and Adoption”. He and his wife Tracy Posner founded the organization to help unwanted large dogs find their forever homes.
The first Batman movie is not the one from 1966. The 1966 Batman with Adam West is usually thought of as the first one, but there was actually one before it. It was called Batman/Dracula, made by Andy Warhol in 1964 and who may or may not have had the blessing/permission of DC Comics – that’s still up in the air. Warhol screened it only at his exhibitions.
(Ninja’d by Sam!)
There was a Batman movie serial in 1943, called Batman.
Roger Greenaway and Roger Cook were British pop composers of the 60s and 70s, whose hits included “I Was Kaiser Bill’s Batman,” “You’ve Got Your Troubles (And I’ve Got Mine,” “My Baby Loves Loving,” “Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress,” “Gimme Dat Ding,” and, “I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing,” a jingle for Coca-Cola that also was a successful single.
Weird Al Yankovic parodied Survivor with the song “The Rye or the Kaiser.”
The title “kaiser” was the German form of “Caesar.”