When Glen Campbell lived in Phoenix, Arizona, he played golf with Alice Cooper every day.
The Tracy brothers on the popular British sci-fi/marionette show Thunderbirds were Scott, Virgil, Alan, Gordon and John. They were named after the Mercury astronauts Scott Carpenter, Virgil Grissom, Alan Shepard, Gordon Cooper and John Glenn.
Mercury Records was the first US record company to release cassette music tapes, called Musicassettes, in July 1967.
Comedians Dickie Goodman and Bill Buchanan created their own record company, Universe, to release their novelty single “The Flying Saucer.” After pressing the record, they were threatened with a lawsuit by another company already using the name Universe Records. Buchanan and Goodman renamed their company “Luniverse,” and spent days hand-writing “L” in front of “Universe” on the labels of thousands of vinyl .45s, with magic markers.
The single reached the Billboard top 40, so I guess it was worthwhile!
John Goodman’s first job was as a bouncer. His first TV appearance was for a Burger King commercial in which he had no lines but rather only had to bite into a Whopper with glee.
Burger King’s Whopper was invented in 1957. McDonald’s Big Mac was invented in 1967 and was first introduced in Pittsburgh.
Americans have been getting fatter ever since.
The first words of the character Kim in Doonesbury were “Big Mac! Big Mac!” She was a baby adopted from Vietnam, and learned them from watching TV.
The name “Doonesbury” is a combination of the word “doone” (prep school slang for someone who is clueless, inattentive or careless) and the surname of Charles Pillsbury, Gary Trudeau’s roommate at Yale University.
The Harvard-Yale annual football game is called, simply, The Game. Yale leads in that rivalry, currently 65–56–8.
As a stellar high school athlete, Beatnik author Jack Keroauc was recruited by Notre Dame football coach Frank Leahy, but opted to go to Columbia instead.
Pat Leahy is the all-time leading scorer for the New York Jets, playing as the placekicker for 17 years.
Pat Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, is the current President pro tempore of the U.S. Senate, the senior senator of the majority party. He is in the line of succession to the U.S. Presidency behind the Vice President and the Speaker of the House.
The full name of “Pat,” Julia Sweeney’s androgynous SNL character, was Pat O’Neil Riley.
Pat Riley won the 2012 NBA championship with the Miami Heat as their team president. This made Riley the first (and so far only) NBA figure to win an NBA championship as a player [1972 LA Lakers], coach (both assistant [1980 LA Lakers] and head [5X, below]), and executive [2012 Miami Heat].
Riley’s 5 NBA Championships as a coach are with:
- LA Lakers (1980, 1982, 1987, 1988)
- Miami Heat (2006)
Pat Riley played for Adolph Rupp’s all-white Kentucky Wildcats in the 1966 NCAA basketball finals, where they were defeated by the Texas Western (now Texas-El Paso) Miners, the first NCAA champions with an all-black starting lineup.
Current Kentucky coach John Calipari has taken two previous schools to the NCAA Final Four, but both appearances have been expunged, Soviet-style, from the records due to rules violations. The 1996 University of Massachusetts Minutemen’s appearance officially did not happen due to Marcus Camby’s having been paid by agents, and the 2008 University of Memphis Tigers paid the same price for Derrick Rose having had his SAT taken for him by a ringer.
Notable alumni of the University of Massachusetts include Natalie Cole, Bill Cosby, Julius (Dr. J) Erving, Richard Gere and Buffy Sainte-Marie.
Simon and Garfunkel recorded a musical adaptation of Edward Arlington Robinson’s poem “Richard Cory.”
Nobody is quite certain how or why the British expression “go around Robin Hood’s barn” for taking the long way around became “go around Robinson’s barn” in America.
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